Live Rock Turning White?

[Drew]

Hi Guys,

I noticed a small patch on one of my rocks the other day turning white.

I read up and figured i must have been giving the tank too much light, so i cut down to 6 hours a day the last 2 days.

I have noticed the rock next to it now has a large amount of white spots across the top of the rock.

Is this a warning sign of a tank crashing? I feel I may be slightly overstocked.

I have 5 small fish and about 15kg of live rock.

I also have the following corals:
Large-Hammer
Large-Toadstool leather
Medium-Elegance
Medium-Bubble coral
small-hard brain coral

1 crispa anemone
1 small sea urchin
1 starfish (medium)

Clean up crew:
3 small hermit crabs
4 small sea snails.

in a 130l tank it's not practical to put a skimmer in place so i do regular water changes and all corals are in good condition.


If any more details are needed to see why my rock is turning white and how i can fix it.. let me know i don't want to let it get worse.

[Drew]

just did a calcium test and it is off the charts.

I add bio trace (trace elements) once a week when i do weekly water changes.

26 dropsof the second bottle in the test gives a calcium reading of 560.

i had 32 drops before it changed colour... meaning it is way too high.


is this something I need to worry about, as it clearly must be effecting the coralline. how can i reduce this? if i stop using the bio trace i am worried the corals may not get everything they need.

Maybe the water I get could be too high in calcium?!

[accurist85]

What is the temperature of the water?

Keep the temperature bit low... if it is high

Calcium content doesnt seem to bleach the live rocks... and light is always good for them to produce some new growth that were dormant in live rocks.
All your doing is good!

Try some purple up product, they usually bring live rock back to its purply colour with coraline algae....

Is your live rock new? then they might be getting rid of dead organisms and will soon grow back!

Keep the eye on temperature keep it cool, and keep the calcium level at remmanded level and run the protein skimmer on full time!

Your rocks will recover soon!

Good luck!

[Drew]

I don't run a protein skimmer as it's a small tank!

I will get some purple up! i do regular water changes, normally once a week and sometimes twice a week which I'm hoping makes up the need

have recently put in new rock and new coral.

However, the live rock with the whit4e growth is my oldest live rock which once upon a time was full of little bugs and feather dusters... but now my puffer has eaten all the bugs.

how do i keep calcium level low?


i have constant 26-28celcius.

[Drew]

no worries guys! i found out what the case was!


I recently bought an urchin and found him in the dark climbing the rocks and eating the coralline algae off the rocks!!!

my calciumlevels are still high so I am doing more frequent water changes until I can get it back to normal.