Victoria SPS Dominated Reef Owners

[Canadian]

Dear Victoria area SPS dominated reef owners,

I'm in desperate need of some feedback. Ok that's a little dramatic but nevertheless, I am getting frustrated with my SPS coloration. I don't know if it's a carry-over of my husbandry skills of long ago where the focus was on attempting to keep a "super clean" tank but my colors have been pale for the last year. My tank is BB. My nitrates are 0. My phosphate is literally 0.00 on a Hanna meter. I've recently made several changes including adding more fish and feeding more, and dosing some Zeovit additives. Time will tell whether or not these changes improve the depth of color.

But at this point I feel like I need another set of eyes to take a look at the tank in person to get some feedback.

Anyone willing to come over to take a look? You let me know what your choice of beer is and I'll have it here.

[JDigital]

Why Victoria!? I've always wanted to see your tank in person!

[Canadian]

I guess you don't have to be from Victoria. So far you're the only one who has expressed any interest, so let me know what your favorite beer is and when you're heading over ;)

[Denis]

Try cutting back you lights, half hour at the time over few months. Once the colors start to look little too brownish, go back up a bit.

[tlo]

i'll come have a look, if you need, I can even take some home with me and see how they look in my tank ;)

[JDigital]

I guess you don't have to be from Victoria. So far you're the only one who has expressed any interest, so let me know what your favorite beer is and when you're heading over ;)


Frags can sometimes be better than beer.. :shocked!: lol

[lorenz0]

How long is your photo period and what fish do you have in the tank?

man i too love your tank and set up. Only thing i can think of is your bio load being to low, lights are on to long or your skimming to much.

[Canadian]

Thanks for the replies! :D

I've traded frags with others and they've generally been able to get better coloration (deeper) than I have.

I've made a lot of changes in the last 2 weeks so I really do need to give it time to see if they take effect before I completely lose my mind.

With that said, I'll outline some more info about my tank to help with some troubleshooting:

Equipment list - as seen in my signature below.

Lamps: (in order from front to back) ATI Blue+, Giesemann Pure Actinic, Giesemann Midday, ATI AB Spezial, ATI Blue+, ATI Blue+

Dawn/dusk lamps are the Giesemann Pure Actinic and ATI Blue+ (lamps 2 and 5) on at 2:00PM and off at 10:30PM - 8.5 hours

Daylight lamps are ATI Blue+, Giesemann Midday, ATI AB Spezial, ATI Blue+ (lamps 1,3,4,6) on at 4:00PM and off at 10:00PM - 6 hours


Livestock:
- Flame Angel (no it doesn't pick at anything and it was only added last week)
- 2 x Saddleback Clowns
- Sixline Wrasse
- Chalk Basslet
- Talbot's Damsel
- Cleaner Shrimp
- Serpent Star
- A few Blue Leg Hermits and Astrea Snails

I've basically never seen a pod of any sort in this tank since I changed it over last March. This suggests to me that there's an absence of anything for them to eat in this BB tank. Like I said, I'm at a loss. I know my nutrient levels are really low and I'm trying to up them with increased feedings and dosing Zeovit's Nano-Power (Coral Vitalizer, Phol's Xtra, Amino Acids LPS & Sponge Power).

[lorenz0]

wanna shoot some pictures???

personally i think your tank is so low in nutrients (like using full zeo). Try feeding oyster and roti feast twice a week and see the long term effects of it. As i take it your only food source for your sps is fish crap.

Your lighting is good, basically the same schedual i am on

[Canadian]

Ok here are some pictures. I took these with my crappy Canon G10 camera. I hate this thing. I wish I had purchased a DSLR instead of letting my wife talk me out of it. But I digress . . . These pics were taken quickly with automatic mode and display the color as more saturated than it really is. Also, the crappy camera (more likely user error) isn't the best when it comes to exposure and I didn't want to take the time to try to edit these in Aperture to make them more accurate tonight. But I will tomorrow if need be.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/vv223/argrant/rsz_front_view_pale_sps.jpg?t=1266470053

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/vv223/argrant/rsz_1side_view_pale_sps.jpg?t=1266470368

[Canadian]

Yeah, those pics suck. They're too overexposed to show subtle color highlights and pastel colors.

But I guess the closest thing to "real" color in my tank is the two birdsnest corals on the left. The pink one is incredibly pale and the green one is supposed to have purple polyps and they're pretty much non-existent. Even the green of that birdsnest is super pale with small patches of more vivid green.

[lorenz0]

ya i would try feeding them. Thinking they are just hungry or it could be your light is a tad bit to low. could also try raising it

[christyf5]

I don't know if this might help, its some neat info though.

http://reefbuilders.com/2008/09/03/guide-of-sps-coral-coloration-make-them-more-vivid-bright/

Personally one of the best things I did for my tank besides dosing coral snow and coral vitalizer (I can't say enough good things about this stuff) was dose potassium. It took awhile but my corals really got some amazing colors using it.

[Canadian]

Thanks Christy.

I've read that SPS Colorization thing in the past. I don't know how much of it is reality and how much is fantasy given there's essentially no evidence for most of the claims made. With that said, I don't have much to lose. My biggest concern with K dosing is the inability to accurately test for it with hobbyist test kits. I actually have some Tailored Aquatics K that I've dosed intermittently in the past but I'm a little gun shy given there are no accurate test kits and that Seachem Reef Salt is reported to have adequately high K levels already.

[christyf5]

Yeah I'm sort of on the fence about dosing all that stuff in my tank as well, esp the iron (I can already grow algae like stink, why would I want to give it more fuel?)

What about waterchanges then? How often do you do those? I did also find I got better overall coloration and polyp extension when I started doing 10% waterchanges every week.

[chris121277]

Just tagging along here...trying to get some better color my self

[christyf5]

Forgot you were running zeo so you're probly already sticking to their WC regimen

[George]

Maybe because of a combination of lighting spectrum(color) and par? You have a lot of bulbs that peak at or near 450nm. That produces a lot of blue color. You are lacking some other colors. You can try to get some other color bulbs and play with the combination to see if your corals have better color.
Also these blue bulbs don't have as much par as some other bulbs that peak at lower spectrum. I don't have links that show the par of T5 bulbs since I am only interested in metal halide bulbs. But you should be able to find out the information by googling it.




Lamps: (in order from front to back) ATI Blue+, Giesemann Pure Actinic, Giesemann Midday, ATI AB Spezial, ATI Blue+, ATI Blue+

[Canadian]

Christy,

I'm not actually running Zeo - just using a few additives and now using NP Biopellets.


George,

The Blue+ lamps actually have pretty close to the same PAR as lamps that would be rated some where around 10,000K to 12,000K.

See this site for more info about T5 PAR values: http://home.comcast.net/~stevelarsen00/site/?/home/

[lorenz0]

Maybe because of a combination of lighting spectrum(color) and par? You have a lot of bulbs that peak at or near 450nm. That produces a lot of blue color. You are lacking some other colors. You can try to get some other color bulbs and play with the combination to see if your corals have better color.
Also these blue bulbs don't have as much par as some other bulbs that peak at lower spectrum. I don't have links that show the par of T5 bulbs since I am only interested in metal halide bulbs. But you should be able to find out the information by googling it.

actually his bulb choice is great, personally i am not a fan of middays and would run a aquablue + (or something similar instead).

As per K i barely post it due to the same reasons as you guys. i do a cap once or twice a month of TA K. Funny thing about water changes, i find that i get better results with only doing a 10% water change once every 2 weeks. You could also look into dosing b-balance for trace minerals. I haven't started dosing it yet but plan on it in the new tank once i have moved.