Purple Up? Anybody have any experience with this stuff?

[tkmak]

I am just about finished assembling my aquarium, refugium, protein skimmer and putting the fnishing touches on the Ca Reactor. Bought 100lbs of 3 year established live rock off a guy selling it off of craigslist.

The rock is sitting in a tub in proper temp/salinity water with a powerhead while I finish setting up the aquarium.

The rock has a fair amt of purple coralline, but not what I was used to on my last tank years ago. I figure good conditions along with my Ca Reactor should help quite a bit to get the purple coralline up a bit.

There is a product called Purple Up. Anybody use this stuff with any success?

Todd

 

[Krish]

I used Purple-up when I had my 75gal tank and I'd say it helped a bit with the coraline growth seeing at the time I wasn't really supplementing anything (calcium, alk etc ). However if you keep the proper levels (calcium and alk) then your coraline will grow on it's own so the purple-up isn't necessary IMO

 

[Shane and John]

it doesnt work very good!!!if you want good coraline alge then use c-balance a+b!!!you can get is at aquarium paradise

 

[unclejack]

I don't like purple up at all. I attempted to use it on my reef tank and it raised the alk to like 18...at the end, some of my SPS died b/c of it Purple up is definitely a no go for me.

 

[punky34]

I am just about finished assembling my aquarium, refugium, protein skimmer and putting the fnishing touches on the Ca Reactor. Bought 100lbs of 3 year established live rock off a guy selling it off of craigslist.

The rock is sitting in a tub in proper temp/salinity water with a powerhead while I finish setting up the aquarium.

The rock has a fair amt of purple coralline, but not what I was used to on my last tank years ago. I figure good conditions along with my Ca Reactor should help quite a bit to get the purple coralline up a bit.

There is a product called Purple Up. Anybody use this stuff with any success?

Todd

Hey i saw that tub of rocks on craigslist...hahahah..it looked good.

 

[punky34]

I don't like purple up at all. I attempted to use it on my reef tank and it raised the alk to like 18...at the end, some of my SPS died b/c of it Purple up is definitely a no go for me.

DANG~! i just bought a bottle of purple up..been using it for 2 weeks. HELP...and I just put a SPS in this morning....HELP~!~!~!~!

 

[Boomer]

and it raised the alk to like 18

Nope, 90 % of the time it does not do that at all What happens is that the finely ground 10 micron aragonite does not dissolve in seawater as they seem to think it can. It just floats around in your tank most of the time as particles. Now you scoop out some water to test it with those fine particles in it. The reagents you use for Alk are strong acids, which dissolve the aragonite easily in the test vial and the Alk now ***appears*** to be through the roof PU, as I call it and it is about that as far as what it really does.

 

[Boomer]

Punky

I forgot, it won't hurt anything. Just stop using it if you wish. Some people swear by the stuff but to me it is just a bottle of gibberish and I don't buy their opinions

 

[punky34]

Punky

I forgot, it won't hurt anything. Just stop using it if you wish. Some people swear by the stuff but to me it is just a bottle of gibberish and I don't buy their opinions

Thank you for your thoughts...i'll do some research now.

 

[unclejack]

Um... now I wonder what had caused my SPS belly up... I honesly think it was my alk all mess up. Anyway, I did a few big water change and the parameter is back to normal...things are going again. Seriously I cannot get purple up to work for me.

One thing that did work for me was coral vital. It is a pricy suppliment so I only did it once at the beginning to speed things up. Anybody else had tried it?

 

[fishoutofwater]

used purple up with no success. waist of money in my opinion. c-balance is the best bet and I have had great results with that.

 

[Krish]

I agree on the 2 part C-balance. That's what I went to after the purple-up because with the purple-up, there is no way of seperating your doses (alk, calcium). The only thing you have to remember with the C-balance though is to test your calcium and alk regularily or atleast whenever you add more corals etc to your tank that use up calcium and so forth. It got to the point with my tank that I was dosing one part of the c-balance more than the other daily in order to keep the proper levels. I'd definately recommend the c-balance over purple-up as you have more control over what you are adding, however at the time with me, I used the purple-up because I heard it was good stuff and I wasn't dosing anything else.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

An additional thing to remember about PurpleUp is that it contains iodine. If you're dosing iodine and not testing (tsk tsk) AND adding PurpleUp, you can get yourself in an overdose situation real quick. Normal calcium and alkalinity levels (and patience) are all you need to get coraline.

 

[reefmaster]

I used PU when I had my 75 up also. But now that I have more stonies in, I have been using the 2 part. no mo PU

 

[joker577]

Seachem Reef builder and reef complete for me!

 

[BCT182]

Some less informed LFS's used to really push the purple up. A two part with test kits is really a better way to go.

 

[mattress312]

I used it for a couple months with great success when i first got into the hobby. About 3 yrs ago. However, i had a 55 gallon fowlr. I have since switched to c-balance, and now a calcium reactor with arm media. I now have a 125 gallon, mostly lps and some softies. I just tried the stuff again last month and have to say i liked the c-balance better. I have only been running my calcium reactor for a week and that seems to be trumping everything else. My candy cane, torch, and frogspawn have all split this week and they look "fuller"

 

[Myteemouse]

I dose kalk and my coraline is going nuts and it keeps my CAL at 420-430
and DKH at 9 solid!
two month old tank from clean white/tan rocks to purple spots everywhere..

 

[Reef Setup]

Darn PU, i'm throwing it away i havent used it in a month since i changed to reef crystals do to the fact i was using IO! It was fine using IO but it made my mag low so my cal wasnt where i wanted it, so i dosed mag and pu now that i think about it i regret it i believe it was do to a few close deaths of a few acro's i believe! Now since i havent used it in a month those acro's are coming back!

 

[roscoe]

I say pass on it. Waste of money!