World of Mayja

You can see my live rock again now that the diatom bloom is over (that was the nasty, brown algae all over the rock and substrate). There's still some on the substrate but NOTHING like before. I took some photos of the rock to show my fellow reefers on the forums when I noticed an awesome color: PURPLE! I ran to my computer and started Googling everything about purple algae growth and if it were a sponge that needed to be plucked. I asked the forums for aid. The conversations went like this:

Is it squishy?
No.
Is it moving on its own?
No.
Can you blow it off the rock with a turkey baster?
One sec...
No.
Can you easily scratch it off the rock?
Dude! I just toweled off!
Hang on...
No!
Then it's coralline algae. Congratulations.

Why congratulations, you ask? Coralline algae is considered to be one of the better algae to have in your saltwater tank. For one, it looks pretty as it comes in a variety of colors. I currently have deep red and purple.

Two, it grows slowly so you can keep an eye on its growth pattern. Three, and most importantly, it can only exist if your tank's water parameters are very good quality. Coralline algae can only thrive in water that is lower in nutrients, which means that the other nasty algae (that thrive on nutrients in the water) cannot grow. Coralline does not tolerate ammonia, nitrites or high nitrates in the water. Coralline does eat up calcium from the water, which is detrimental to corals, but for now that's okay because I don't have any corals yet. Plus, you can always add a calcium supplement to the water if you have enough of the algae to make a big difference.

Yay for awesome water parameters! I can grow algae!