best way to get purple

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Portereef

Member
hey whats everyones favorite ways to get coraline growing in your tanks. I am on the hunt for knowledge, and yes I know they sell purple up additives but is that really worth a try or is there a better way?
 
Purple Up is junk, doesn't work in saltwater tanks (no matter what anyone says). Scientifically, it is just super super super fine aragonite sand that doesn't dissolve in salt water. Only way you'll get purple up to work is if you use it in a calcium reactor with a pH to dissolve the aragonite into usable Alk/Cal building blocks for the coralline.

Best way to gro coralline is to keep SPS quality tank parameters and lighting. The one thing I've noticed helped grow coralline faster was raising magnesium to 1400 and holding it there. Coralline is one of the biggest users of Magnesium as far as calcifying creatures in our tanks go.
 
Portereef said:
hey whats everyones favorite ways to get coraline growing in your tanks. I am on the hunt for knowledge, and yes I know they sell purple up additives but is that really worth a try or is there a better way?
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Coraline algae dosent just "form". You need to introduce it into the tank either on rock or scrapings from another tank.

With that said it is a calcium based algae so elevated calcium levels will help but could cause problems else where. Purple Up is just that. A calcium additive but it also contains iodide. When using it you need to test both cal and iodide. The latter is not depleted as rapidly in an aquarium so elevated levels will happen quickly.

My favorite way to "get purple" is found in an additive you cant buy anywhere. Its called "patience".

Routine water changes help too. But patience is the best thing in any aquarium. You cant rush mother nature.
 
Purple up is a very expensive way to dose calcium basically. How long has your system been setup up for? Are you using base rock or do you have any rock with some coralline on it. The base will just take a while to color up if you don't have any coralline in the tank at all. With all base your basically starting with a sterile environment.It should take a couple of months given your calc, alk and magnesium are in ranges. Calc - 400-450 ppm, alk 7-11 dKh, magnesium 1250-1400ppm.
 
Again, purple up DOES NOT dissolve in saltwater and does nothing. The only way to get it to dissolve is to mix it in with very low pH water and then add it to the tank.
 
SkullV said:
Again, purple up DOES NOT dissolve in saltwater and does nothing. The only way to get it to dissolve is to mix it in with very low pH water and then add it to the tank.
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Very low ph would be considered acidic, so your saying this should be mixed with acidic water. Ph of of 7 or above is considered basic or alkaline
 
I don't think it SHOULD be mixed or added to anything as it is the exact same sand you have on the bottom of your tank just significantly more fine. The only way it would work would be to mix it with a low ph to get it to dissolve. As I stated before, this would be similar to the low pH environment found in a calcium reactor (~6.5pH).

Bottom line, purple up is a waste of money and does nothing at all in your tank.
 
I've had my Biocube 14 set up since beginning April and started to get coraline growth in early June. It seems slow growing but steady - showing purple, pink, white and some green/yellow.. I'm fairly certain it was introduced to my tank from a frag. I don't dose anything just 4-5 gallon water change every 15 days.

Agree that patience and maybe a frag to introduce it to your system is the way to go.
 
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I think the answer has been covered fully here, but here is my experience with it.

My first tank had been set up for approximately 6 months before I started to see a couple purple spots appear. These quickly grew at a rapid pace until one day, they all started turning white. All of my parameters were in line so I couldn't figure out what the problem was, but just continued to do what I was doing.

A couple of months down the road, it started coming back with a vengeance.

Now, I have to constantly scrape the glass so that I can see inside my tank.

As for my second tank, I started that one out with dry rock. After acquiring some frags that had some nice purple coralline spots on them, they started to slowly begin colonizing the rocks and glass. I would say that it took approximately 4-6 months before it started aggressively growing.

I do use kalkwasser in my top off water so that my parameters are inline and can cope with the requirements of the coralline.

I guess in short, if you purchase frags with coralline on them, that will start colonizing your tank, and then after that, it just takes time. There aren't any supplements I would waste money on. Just keep your parameters in line and give it time.

Hope this helps.
 
You don't need to do anything very special, coralline likes subdued lighting to start out. Keep your calcium levels right, and lights on the lower end and it will grow (after introduced) one other thing is to scratch at it with something like a wire brush to open it up.
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Every since I started measuring my alk/cal levels and dosing with 2 part, my coraline has exploded. Increased water changes helped too.
 
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