how are you adding the saturated KALK WASSER, is it running through an ATO type system, or are you dumping it in, or are you dripping it in? what are your water changes like, and what corals are in the tank, and how much?

do you have a current tank picture?

do you have a sandbed, if so, how deep and what kind of sand?


there are lots of factors when it comes to coralline algae growth, flow, light, nutrients, Ca, Alk, SG, pH and so on... if any of these things are changed, even in the slightest it can cause the coraline to slow growth, stop growing, or even cause a die off of coraline.


How fast was the coraline growing before, and was anything changed in the tank as far as flow or lighting?

 

how are you adding the saturated KALK WASSER, is it running through an ATO type system, or are you dumping it in, or are you dripping it in? what are your water changes like, and what corals are in the tank, and how much?

do you have a current tank picture?

do you have a sandbed, if so, how deep and what kind of sand?

there are lots of factors when it comes to coralline algae growth, flow, light, nutrients, Ca, Alk, SG, pH and so on... if any of these things are changed, even in the slightest it can cause the coraline to slow growth, stop growing, or even cause a die off of coraline.

How fast was the coraline growing before, and was anything changed in the tank as far as flow or lighting?

I added the kalk manually to buffer levels prior to adding fish. I no longer use it, calc levels don't drop so I haven't added it again.

Sand bed approximately 1 to 2cm deep.

It was growing quickly to begin with then GHA took a foot hold and it stopped?

 

How old is the tank? Seems you are adding a lot of things to try to establish perfect, but dealing with the adverse effects of the dosing. I don't know much about Carbon dosing. Found the risks to high for me.

My advise would be to stop all dosing. Do some water changes on a schedule. Let your tank go through the uglies and come to a balance. It took my tank six months before Coraline would grow.

 

I keep wondering why people are so worried about coraline algae not growing in their tanks. I am getting tired of it growing on the glass of my tank and having to scrub it.

So, Dany, enjoy it while it is not growing !

 

I'm with you, I keep my lighting in the back portion of my tanks so I don't have to deal with it growing on my front glass

 

I don't care for it myself, but it is a nice sign when it starts growing well.

 

Nice sign of what ?

 

looks like you have a phosphate problem, and the carbon dosing is just going to make it worse. if you are having to boost your pH, then the bacteria are cranking, usually from waste organic material, detritus. how often do you siphon out detritus?

coralline has stopped because the LR is becoming saturated with phosphates. carbon dosing is stripping the P out of the water column giving you false readings. the bacteria in the LR are being starved because the bacteria in the water column have all of the resources. once P becomes bound to the LR, coralline and other hermatypic organisms can not perform photosynthesis properly. they need to trade calcium carbonate with the base structure in order to provide CO2 as a carbon source for photosynthesis.

what are you using to get those values? do you have digital instruments? i would be interested in those. i am guessing from the graph that you can only read phosphates to a resolution of 0.05ppm. not quite enough resolution to be super useful, but a good ball park. i would like 0.01 resolution.

G~

 

yep, your LR is full of phosphate.

G~

 

yep, your LR is full of phosphate.

G~

Time to get cook'n!

if indeed your rocks are full of bound PO4 (and I would agree with Geoff that they are) its time to purge the rocks and free the PO4.

whats the story on the rocks prior to you putting them in your tank? do you know any history of them?