That's about as 'yellow' as I get, as well.. mumblegrumble.. THIS may be an effect of high phos......
On the algae fuge front, I cannot, for the life of me, get practically any type of macro algae to grow in mine.
The cheato just sits there and grows other algae on it.. I guess any algae growing is nutrients being removed but if you can keep n and p where they are, already, I don't really see the point in using it..
There is some argument (as d2mini relates) to Triton's theory about growing the algea to reduce nutrients and also having it decompose and get eaten by other algea eaters to reintroduce organic carbon and other nutrients back to the tank..
It's interesting you mentioned algae eaters Matt. There is one thing i have always had in vast numbers in all my SPS systems from day one in the hobby - snails.
In my display atm i would have a minimum of 300 turbo snails from 1/4" up to the max 1/2" dia they reach, another hundred in the overflow and sump. I remove about 20-30 empty shells a week as some of the old fart snails die of old age.
Anyway, the snail population is self regulating as you might imagine and if there is lots to eat they breed. I turn the lights on every now and then to see 20-25 blobs of snail eggs stuck all over the rocks and glass. I don't often see the males releasing sperm into the water but i saw it one evening just before the actinics i was running for dusk went off. At least 20 snails turned the entire 65gal (Dom's tank now) into a white out. All the acros had zero PE immediately and they hated the entire thing. Took an hour before the water cleared enough for some of them to begin poking out their polyps.
About 3 weeks ago i saw two big egg laying sessions over a week and last night when i shone the torch on the end panel which i hadn't cleaned of algae for two days is could see about 100 1/8th" baby snails pigging out. That was just on the smallest end panel, the sand in my display is kept spotless to a large extent by the ongoing snail breeding. At night the sand and rocks are covered in 1/16"-1/8" baby snails chowing down.
The fish don't process anywhere near the nutrients that a well managed snail population does.
Most will read what i just mentioned and think ' yeah yeah get a good clean up crew ' - better off to think get a massive algae recycling crew operating.
You and i have the same tanks and same parameters and nutrient levels but you have about 50 snails and i have my huge population continuously feeding the acros 24/7 with snail poo, i bet my colors are more saturated than yours.......
You all know how spotless my sand and rocks are relative to most reefs on here, so why do i have such a massive snail population when there's stuff all for them to eat.......... because i have a lot more algae growing daily than is visible to my eyes. The snail army mows most of it down before it's long enough to show up.
Snails - just as important as fish to feeding the acros, IF you can get a large population established - if you can't get snails to breed you'll probably be looking at pale acros as well
I think Dom is coming over Friday and he'll be going home with a bag of snail poo acro feeders :smokin:
Thanks for your help Andrew the acro in question has been positioned high up for over six months now under an ati 8 bulb unit, maybe I should just give up on it.
Thanks again.
Before getting rid of it.....
Drop it down 4" and in much lower flow - half as much as now. Clip the tips of 3-4 branches. Watch the healing regrowth and if it isn't a different highlight pigment, usually light and what the tips will be when happy - THEN give up. If you see even a hint of another pigment you haven't seen it is pure and simple. You don't have the acro in the happy place in your reef it needs or it's a fussy bugger and won't ever tolerate your water.
This little guy is starting to wake up and shoot new growth in the last 3 weeks.
How in the hell are you going to collect acros when you're holding a camera for this lot. 
