New (first) corals, need some advice/opinions

[SmallFry]

Last weekend I picked up a couple of frags - at last the tank has finally become some sort of a reef.. If you call three frags in a 75 gallon a reef!

I've had a GSP frag for a while, but these are the first hard corals..



Montipora digitata (I think)





Favia (I think based on what I've read in Aquarium Corals by Borneman)



Anyway, I have a few questions.. Mainly regarding placement and colouring. Here is a FTS to show where they are in the tank


GSP is on the sand to the left of centre, favia on the middle level of rock just about at the centre, montipora at the same level just to the right of centre.
The light is 12 cool white Cree 3W and 12 royal blue Cree 3W each side of the fixture. All are being driven at 700mA with 60 degree optics.

The Montipora had no polyps out when I bought it, and the skeleton is purplish. The day after I got it in the tank it had all its polyps out, but they are brownish as you see in the photos.
In the shop it was under a 400W metal halide so it shouldn't have been browned out then, could it not be getting enough light in my tank (would it have browned out overnight), or does it just have brown polyps? I couldn't find any info on polyp colour in my coral book.
If it has browned out due to stress or something, how long should it take to colour up.


Given my lighting, does the placement of the corals look OK, or are they getting too little or too much light?
The only one thing I noticed is that the tentacles on the GSP are much shorter now than they were when I bought it a few months ago.
Could it be that I'm pushing too much light in there - nothing has bleached yet, but I was just wondering..

When I bought it, and now


Oh, and apparently the only place I can grow coralline is on my snails...


Sorry if these are dumb questions, but these are my first corals (and I'm probably/almost certainly being a bit neurotic), thanks,

Rob.

[FitoPharmer]

Depending on what color temperature the 400w bulb was it may have made the corals appear a different color compared to your system. MH can make some colors pop like LED cannot. Normally browning is a sign of too much light or nutirents. If there is little to no change since you acquired the piece my money would be on the MH just made it look nicer. Your montipora digita seems to be very healthy to me with slightly purple polyps. Don't forget to feed your favia for it to grow faster.
As for your question about too much light. Most corals can build up to withstand almost any amount of light, and you have enough light to keep anything in that tank. The real trick is in acclimatization. For more sensitive or bleached pieces you need to start them in the shade on the bottom and slowly move them up. Or with LED's sometimes dimming is an easier option.

[FitoPharmer]

BTW how old is your tank?

[SmallFry]

Originally Posted by FitoPharmer

BTW how old is your tank?

I cycled it in March I think, then all my livestock stocking was done by about August. There have been sporadic additions of the odd snail since then. Basically every time I end up in Winnipeg I come back with something or other. Kind of like the Wife in Ikea....

Interesting that too much light can brown them out too, I'd got the impression that browning was overproduction of zooxanthelli due to insufficient light rather than the reverse. So far (touch wood) there doesn't seem to be any sign of bleaching..

Nutrients are a possibility also. Nothing ever shows up on the test kits, but I've had some problems with algae of some sort and a bit of cyano although that is mostly gone now I have my algae scrubber going..

Regarding feeding the favia, I read that it should be done at night when feeding tentacles are out, butive not been able to see that happen. If I send some mysis it's way with a turkey Baster, will it just get the idea?

[FitoPharmer]

Originally Posted by SmallFry

I cycled it in March I think, then all my livestock stocking was done by about August. There have been sporadic additions of the odd snail since then. Basically every time I end up in Winnipeg I come back with something or other. Kind of like the Wife in Ikea....

Interesting that too much light can brown them out too, I'd got the impression that browning was overproduction of zooxanthelli due to insufficient light rather than the reverse. So far (touch wood) there doesn't seem to be any sign of bleaching..

Nutrients are a possibility also. Nothing ever shows up on the test kits, but I've had some problems with algae of some sort and a bit of cyano although that is mostly gone now I have my algae scrubber going..

Regarding feeding the favia, I read that it should be done at night when feeding tentacles are out, butive not been able to see that happen. If I send some mysis it's way with a turkey Baster, will it just get the idea?

Have you noticed any change in the coral since you put it in the tank?

The brownness of corals can be effected by too much or to little light and too much nutrients.

Normally to feed most LPS corals you shut off your flow, then give them a little squirt of food or water from washing the food near the mouth. 5-10 minutes later the polyps will be open and waiting for food to be squirted into the tentacles. Give them 5-15 minutes to eat before turning the flow on

[gregzz4]

Oops, this post is not for me

[Madreefer]

I have a different opinion when it comes to browning out when it comes to LEDs. I've been running mine for 16 months. I had my ups and downs with my lights for the first little while and than my corals took right off once I thought I had them figured out. I decided I needed to get some more to supplement my reds. So since I was adding more I turned my lights down from 100% to 70% intensity. After 2 months of this the browning out and slow growth started. Cranked the intensity back up to 100% and since that time my growth has picked back up and the color is coming back. I'm not near my tank right now but I will post a pic later as I have a red monticap that will show you as the new growth is red rather than the brown it has turned. In my case I strongly beleive it was a lighting problem and not nutrient related. With your tank being setup with LEDs from the start i'd have them cranked up. And I agree that your corals will not have that same pop as they do under MHs

[MMAX]

Your digi needs to be as high as you can put it in your tank in a high flow area. I purchased a digi frag a few months ago that was pure white until it became less stressed from the move and acclimated to my lighting. Took a couple of weeks. Beautiful purplish-blue color now.

[SmallFry]

Thanks for the help, I tried feeding the favia tonight, one or two polyps did try eating some mysis although I've no idea how much I must've pumped into the tank in the process. I guess I'd better just hope the algae scrubber is up to the job. Having to repel two cleaner shrimp didn't help - those things are faster than ninjas...

I'm still not quite sure what to do with the montipora, it's perfectly happy as far as I can tell, just brownish. Who knows, perhaps that's the colour it's supposed to be. I might try giving it a week or so to see what it does before trying moving it up into more flow for two reasons; one is that I want to let it acclimatize, and secondly I'll need to get some epoxy to hold it in place before I can raise it to the upper rocks. The flow up near those korallia 1400s actually makes the turbo snails vibrate when they're up there..