Coraline algae growth

Spartanman22

Spartanman22

Well-known member
I see so many tanks with rocks covered in rich purple coraline algae and for some reason I've never been able to accomplish that in 8+ years of reefing. I've had pretty successful SPS reefs with great growth but the coraline never seemed to take off. On my previous tank the glass would get covered in it, but it refused to grow on the rock except in shaded areas. I dosed BRS alk, cal, mag and on my current tank (about a year old) I dose DIY 2-part.

Is there something I'm missing? Are my astrea snails preventing it from growing? I haven't tested mag recently but alk was 4.5 meq /L and cal was 450. And I do a 5 gallon water change weekly. My coral is growing well and coloration is pretty good so in the grand scheme of things my tank is doing quite well, I've just been trying to wrap my head around why I don't have any coraline growth on my LR
 
Do you have a lot of the small white asterina starfish? Some eat coraline so you only see small patches but it never takes off. Had them in my previous tank.
 
I have always run at 4.5 but you're right that is a little high. I've recently dialed back on my dosing pump since two colonies started to STN. I have had periodic outbursts of those stars and currently have some now. I remove them with tweezers as I find them but the repopulate pretty quickly
 
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