Coraline Die-Off?

[ConnorD42]

Hey all! I've been in the reef hobby for roughly a month now and I just noticed under blue lighting that I have a few spots of coraline algae that are dark fluorescent red and fluorescent orange on my power head (sorry if the photo quality is trash btw) and I read elsewhere that this indicates coraline algae is dying. Can anyone here confirm? I hadn't run pure blue lighting in the time I have had the tank set up but the spots don't look like they've been receding, but growing rather slowly (I am trying to combat whats left of a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, hair algae problem from previous owner by not running day lighting for a few days). I'm not sure what I'm looking at for certain though and would like to know. Water parameters haven't changed, except for ammonia, which is only around 0.25ppm. Thanks for reading!

[KurtS]

I've only seen that color on coraline algae when it was new. The fluorescence under blue light went away after it 'matured'. 

[ConnorD42]

Okay, so I'm not crazy, I have noticed it getting larger! So it makes sense then if someone had an encrusted piece of rock out of water for enough time, placed it back in an aquarium, then observed the same phenomenon.

[WV Reefer]

1 minute ago, ConnorD42 said:

Okay, so I'm not crazy, I have noticed it getting larger! So it makes sense then if someone had an encrusted piece of rock out of water for enough time, placed it back in an aquarium, then observed the same phenomenon.

Anytime it is disturbed, like being out of water, the algae will glow. Sometimes that means it’s dying but usually it will recover. 

[ConnorD42]

That's really interesting to me.. I think it should be fine though given some time.