frustrated with colour...

[kwirky]

Ok, I've been having problems retaining deep rich colours in some of my LPS corals and an SPS colony I recently aquired too. Growth is no problem but colours are a pain...

I bought this at Gold's almost 4 weeks ago. Dennis said it was montipora. I think it's a type of montipora digitata. Didn't know if it was aquacultured, or if they just fragged up a colony they recieved. Was a 3" frag.
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquarium/07-03-27/montipora.jpg


It looked like this 3 days later and hasn't changed since:
http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquarium/07-04-22/sps.jpg

I think I bleached it. Dennis said to put it at the top of my tank and not to bother screening it with window screen... I think that bleached it. It's grown pretty good though since I've gotten it... The areas with the newest growth have green polyps but the skeleton is still the fleshy pink colour.

I do notice little dark spots that have multiplied on it and no polyps grow around these. Could it be an infection, or just retracted polyps? This was my first sps piece.

And I also have a favia frag that at the LFS had nice deep green polyps with a green fringe around each polyp. Now it's completely brown and only shows the deep colouring in new growth that's in any sort of a shaded spot. still haven't gotten it's original colour and it's almost 3 months later.

It's a 120g 48x24x24 system with an 8 bulb teklight T5 light. undetectable nitrates for at least the past 3 months (salifert kit). constant skimming from a euroreef, and I actively run carbon that's changed at least every 3 weeks. phosban reactor with rowaphos.

I do have some large (6"+) chunks of sarcophyton. I'm in the process of getting rid of some of them. But the favia frag browned out before I got the sarcophyton.

I'm at a loss. I've changed my T5 bulb combinations to no avail, I've been up on my testing and I maintain 420ppm calcium and 8 dkh alkalinity (using 2 part). It's getting kinda annoying because it feels as though i'm missing SOMETHING.

[Bryan]

One aspect of the coloring you may want to look at is the fact your system is probably nutrient poor and the corals are starving. I had the same situation as yours and deliberately add nitrate to my system. Colors of SPS became richer as a result. I shoot for around 5ppm. There is a few threads on RC on this subject.

[Ruth]

You might try moving the coral lower in the tank and see if it regains color. If it does then, of course, that is your answer.
I agree with you that I don't think it is nitrates as that will usually cause a coral to brown out not bleach out.
Super low nutrient tank can have problems maintaining color on corals but IME it is usually that they are a pale/pastel shade of their normal rich coloration. Yours appears to have lost all color. I have a former bright green hydrophora in my tank that suffers from the same thing - still grows - has great polyp extension (read shaggy bush) but only a pale brown/tan color. I am going to try and move it down and see if I can color it up again.
In low nutrient zeovit tanks an element that often gets depleted is potassium and that can also lead to very pale/ STN events and you have to suppliment with a potassium mix. You can buy a potassium test kit (they are a cursed test kit that is very difficult to read) and try that. I have this test kit and am actually coming to Calgary the week after next. PM me if you would like me to bring it down with me and you can borrow to see if this might be your problem.

[marie]

I have to second the nutrient poor comment. I have always fed sparingly and kept a very low fish load to keep the nutrient levels down but I have noticed a huge improvement on colour just since I started over feeding my tank in an attempt to stop my angel from eating my corals.
Coral growth has always been good but lately its been great and the only difference is the amount of food i've been feeding that rotten regal angel

pics of my old 75g with 175w metal halides, notice the green monti at the top of the tank
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/2202006_0207Image0002.JPG

pics of the same green monti in the new tank before overfeeding...now under 250w metal halides.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/mariesnell/2005_0302fish0014.jpg

here is a pic of the same monti now
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/data/500/medium/growth_029.jpg


Oh and did I mention growth is fantastic :lol:

[Ruth]

The 2 biggest things that have caused me endless headaches with SPS is nitrates and heat.
Because I have struggled with Nitrates I decided to try and go fishless on my SPS tank. After just over 2 months I added fish as my corals were doing nothing - no growth - no color improvement (if anything losing some color) - no nothing.
Sooooo - I added 2 small fish......well actually I added 7 new fish but 3 of the firefish jumped and the 2 remaining killed the other one. I now have 2 firefish and a mandarin. I feed sparingly as these are the only fish in a 110g tank - with a sump/fuge that probably holds another 40g. of water. I also have 3 cleaner shrimp - 3 peppermint shrimp - 3 camel shrimp and numerous snails. I also have 5 clams in there.
My coral growth has never been better and color is outstanding. Because I ship all of my corals they often arrive browned out or brown out a bit just from the shock of shipping. Everything has colored up so nicely. One acro that arrived totally brown has since turned a bright green and now the tips are showing signs of turning a lighter shade of blue/green. Even my pale yellow acro with purple tips is maintaining it's color.
Every day I dose this tank with Pohl's coral vitalizer and amino acids. I feed phyto about once a week for the clams and also add some of those bottled "pods" (can't remember what they are called right now but from OA). I also feed a variety of flake and homemade frozen mush with frozen cyclopeeze added.
I guess the point of all this rambling is that while corals do need a certain amount of nitrate in order to thrive be very careful as it is just so easy to push this over the top and end up with brown/dead corals.

[Joe Reefer]

Kwirky, do you feed any type of coral food? You may want to consider supplementing them something.

[kwirky]

Kwirky, do you feed any type of coral food? You may want to consider supplementing them something.

I have some kent coral food (dropper bottle) but I bought it before I got the SPS and never noticed any results when using it then. Never bothered using it when I got the SPS because it didn't seem to help with the softies/lps I have.

I could try dosing it again. what about cyclop-eez? think that would be good to use too?

I feed my LPS with frozen mysis using forceps twice a week already. helps with growth but hasn't really improved colour.

I'm going to try dosing the kent coral food again, and I'm going to feed my fish a little more too. I have fish that aren't finicky at all, so I feed them new life spectrum marine flake once daily and frozen mysis twice a week when I feed the lps (i give them the leftovers).

Should I increase the flake feeding or the mysis feeding?

What nitrate levels should I start to worry then? It's undetectable now, do I slow down the heavy feeding at 0.4ppm? 1.0ppm? 3ppm? or higher?

also there aren't any phosphates in the tank because I've been using a phosban reactor for at least 6 months. Don't even think it'll have any in the rocks n such because it's been running for a while. Heard some coral use phosphates too. Maybe take it off?

[Renegade]

just a though but make sure your carbon does not leak phosphates back into the water some variates do. If so then your phos-ban reactor is going to waste. I stopped using carbon b/c i found it was exausting my media to quickly. I'm now using cemi-pure quite happy so far.
http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/details/additives.php?product_ID=bd-cpre10

[marie]

I wouldn't let the nitrates become detectable but I would slowly increase feedings until nitrates start to become detectable or you get a small algae bloom and then back off on the amount a little bit.

Also feed an assortment of food... cyclopeeze, frozen mysis, finely chopped squid or oysters ect.

[kwirky]

ok thanks for the help everyone.

Tonight I put egg crate over the tank and put two fishnets over top of the SPS. I didn't want to move it down as then it's water flow would completely change. And I'd rather keep some coral at the top end of the tank anyways. I'll remove one fishnet if it starts to show improvement for a week straight, then the other a week afterwards.

I'm going to switch up my feeding so I'm feeding more frozen and less flake. I think it'd be healthier for everything in the tank.

[albert_dao]

It's Stylopora I believe :P