Banging my head on the tank!

[henryd]

Ok..had to break down the tank in the spring and its been back up for six months. Been through the diatom bloom, hair algea, etc. I am waiting for the coraline to take over before I start putting the polyps, shrooms, plates, etc.
salinity 1.23
ph 8.2
alk 410
calcium 490
nitrites, nitrates 0
phosphates 0

Using sump, with protien skimmer, currently using phosphate remover in an over the back filter for the last month. the tank is a 180g, with oceanmedic light 3 250w MH, 4 39w PC atinics

I drip kalk daily. dose with magn weekly, use a two part buffer/calc
I am getting some dots of white/pink coraline on the back wall but I still cannot get anything on the rock. The liverock that came in with coraline, it has paled.

What am I doing wrong?
I am trying to be very patient....but

[jhnrb]

You are not doing anything wrong. maybe the lighting is drastically diff. than where the rock came from and the coraline may have experianced photo shock. If you are patient you will get what you are seeking. just dont try to rush it. with a 180 gal system you do not need to wait for the addition of some initial corals. Your calcium is a bit high and your alkalinity is up a bit, however, if you have nothing in the tank to use up the calcium etc. you may be ok. personally I would use 450 as my upper end on the calcium. you might want to cut back just a bit on the 2 part additive and see if that dosnt bring down things just a bit. hope something here helps.

[jhnrb]

Here is a link to an article in our articles forum that might help.

http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/sa...ae-primer.html

[henryd]

JHNRB,
Thank you. My wife was trying to tell a friend about what I am trying to do and he has a co-worker who was downsizing his tank and about 2 hours ago, 35lbs of live rock was dropped off at my door. Three of the pieces have very deep purple on the tops of the rocks. Several other have some purple just not alot (probably from lower in his tank). I am hoping the new coraline will seed the tank and I don't kill this new very pretty live rock.