reusing live rock and troubles within

Question
Approx. 2 years ago I had a thriving reef/fish tank. I sported plate corals and had coraline algae almost to the point of nuisance. Then I had to move for a year due to my work and the person in charge of my house and beloved tank got engaged and moved out of state. The electricity in my house was shut off and my tank turned into 55 gallons of wicked smelling stew. Upon my return I emptied the tank and scrubbed what was my live rock and soaked them for a week in tap water, then washed and scrubbed them again and soaked them in RO water for another week, then drained and scrubbed them again and then soaked them in RO water with the proper amount of reef crystals added. After this series of washing and soaking I bought new live sand and enough live rock to seed the old ones and started another tank. Now after a year and a half I just cant get any coraline to grow. I have tried purple up as well as some other products to no avail. I have a cleaner shrimp as well as a few chromis that have lived for over a year but I just cant seem to get any new algae to grow, in fact the algae that is on my new rocks soon turns grey and dies. I recently bought a turbo snail whose shell was covered with coraline and it also turned white and died. I am using all my old filters and lighting which worked superbly in my first tank. Ammonia, nitrates,phosphates,silicates are all normal. PLEASE, any ideas??

Answer
Hi Richard,

I do have ideas for you.

First of all, I need some specifications of the new aquarium.

Secondly, if it's turning white, the salinity is off.  If you use the Coralife Hydrometer, there are issues with the measurements in some of the gauges.  Please try the Instant Ocean Hydrometer, as it is very accurate and I've owned many hydrometers.  Not saying they're all off, but that particular brand has been very dis-satisfactory for me.

Coralline grows when there is ample calcium in the water, and that is why some choose to use Purple Up.  I love it.  Works great to boost calcium.  Basically, it's aragonite and water with calcium and other supplements.  Good stuff, but it's not going to cause your tank to produce coralline.  

Coralline cannot come where there is no seeding of coralline to begin with.  If you have none, you might introduce a rock containing some, and then scrape it with a fingernail file under water, and remove some of the coralline.  Might sound like a mean thing to do to some perfectly good coralline, but that will seed your other rock.  It can't grow where it is not flourishing and seeded.

So, if you started with dry rock, and then put them into your tank and started with new sand...you've got no source to get coralline to begin.

What I can also recommend is increase of flow.  Flow causes coralline growth.  I tested this thoery.  Setup: Two small, identical tanks.  Powerhead in one, no powerhead in the other.  Both got 2 mollies and a snail.  In 2 months, unit #1 (with powerhead) got coralline growth and in unit #2, nothing but some small, green hard patches of hard coralline.  The findings?  Well, I am reasonably sure that coralline cannot spread fast without flow.  So you might get patches here or there, but it won't flourish without enough flow around it.

I keep my flow up anyway.  That is the best way to assure clean sand and water.  Keep the flow going.  In the ocean, flow is harsh.  It's not like our tanks.  We think we're hurting fish and corals adding flow, but the truth is, they do better with it, than without it.

Keep your salinity around 1.024.  In the wild it's 1.025 to 1.026, so we estimate it lower in captivity.  I do let mine wander between the 24 and 25.

Purple Up doesn't contain any coralline seed.  So, go to your local petstore and buy one extremely purple rock (if you have to hunt, it's worth it!) and put it in the tank and scrape the heck out of it.  Bald the parts that won't really show, and then add it to your rock...watch the coralline begin.

I was told in the beginning, that nitrates were an issue which hampered coralline growth.  Wrong.  My daughter's nano tank had horrid nitrates 40ppm (gag - but she's a teenager) and her little nano filled with coralline completely wall to wall within 4 months. It has nothing to do with nitrates.  Nitrates may in fact feed the coralline.

So, my advice:

Use the Purple Up.

Get a rock covered in coralline and scrape the heck out of it.  Seed the tank with that coralline.  

Increase flow.

Skim the heck out of the water, but don't panic if there is 5ppm nitrates.  People do perfectly fine with 5ppm.  10, I believe, is too much, however it happens to the best of us.  A shrimp sheds...it drifts, and voilla...got to do changes.

I change my water every week.  Not bi-weekly.  I have green coralline, red maroon deep dark coralline, a peachy pink coralline, a light purple coralline...there are several strains in our home tanks, but they all came in with live rock, introduced from other places.

Chemical dosing should help.  Use B-Ionic products and add your trace elements.  Magnesium may also help.  It helps calcium in water to be more absorbant, basically.

I hope this helps.  Please feel free to email back if this has given you no new ideas.  I'd like to explore your actual setup more, however, I suspect not having coralline in the tank at all is your main reason for not having any now. :)

Happy fish-keeping.

Renee