best additives for sps color?

[3.99AfterTaxes]

To clarify... My answer to this post was completely opinion. But so are all the other post here. Except for a select few, no one here at reef central is a scientist and conducts actual experimnets with color enhancing products. Its all opinion from fellow reefers. And half the time people add so many things at once they dont even know what is making their tank react in a certain way. My experience with color enhancers like AA is that most of the time they dont work. Generally you can great colors from SPS by honing in the basics like lighting, flow, correct water parameters. In regards to color it is my opinion that the proper lighting will bring out colors best. Anyone with a stable/established tank that has poor coral color should almost certanly look at lighting to be the culprit. Trust me when I say you dont need any of the extra snake oil crap marketed towards the SPS crowd to have TOTM colors. All just my opinion.

That's such a throwaway line. Basically, with your opinion, you're invalidating the experience of x amount of very experienced reef hobbyist. That's both irresponsible and lazy. The whole 'oh none of us are scientist' line of thought is a gimmicky cop-out and grossly understates the capacity of the average SPS keeper (which, I will assume with broad strokes to be upper class and above average success/beyond, due to the demands it takes to upkeep this style of system) to observe their corals and relate causation to factors within their control. Factors like, on I don't know, adding a product and seeing new colors.

But nevermind all this, you have a point; awesome fundamentals will make your tank look pretty swell. Duly noted. For those of us who are participating within the context of this thread...

 

[thebanker]

From what I can tell, coral feeding and pristine filtration will positively affect SPS colors. My SPS was looking a tad brown and sad, and without changing the lighting, I improved colors by dosing more food-additives and changing filtration media with greater frequency.

Gotta agree with 3.99AfterTaxes on this one.

 

[batt600]

Ok alot of info here is off . You only dose AA and other products when running a ULNS ( Ultra Low Nurtrient System ) When running a ULNS Sps will loose color . Only because Needed elements are being removed like Potassium all trace elements things that all keep the color in sps . Water changes have very little trace elements to replace whats been removed and water changes is only to balance out the Ionic in the water. So you dosing anything with out having a ULNS will lead in high nurtients that are not beening used and will turn into P04 and N03 . Lighting and P04 need to be checked first that my be your problem.

 

[allsps40]

^ AAs have been around since before ULNS so no you dont only dose AAs in a ULNS. AAs are lacking in all captive reefs and are good to add but no needed. Potassium is used up quickly in ULNS by the bacteria so it is almost always a must to dose. Iodine has long been known to help blues and purples thus my dosing Lugol's.

 

[LifeAquatic]

Aa

Aa

That's such a throwaway line. Basically, with your opinion, you're invalidating the experience of x amount of very experienced reef hobbyist. That's both irresponsible and lazy. The whole 'oh none of us are scientist' line of thought is a gimmicky cop-out and grossly understates the capacity of the average SPS keeper (which, I will assume with broad strokes to be upper class and above average success/beyond, due to the demands it takes to upkeep this style of system) to observe their corals and relate causation to factors within their control. Factors like, on I don't know, adding a product and seeing new colors.

But nevermind all this, you have a point; awesome fundamentals will make your tank look pretty swell. Duly noted. For those of us who are participating within the context of this thread...

Please post some of your tank pics so we can see your results. If you can post before and after pics and tell us how you feel it helped your corals color improved by using supplements.I'll also post some recent tank pics for comparison. No offense but alot of people on this site post a lot of second hand information without even questioning it or validating for themselves.

 

[M Woodhill]

THEN HOW"BOUT TM PRODUCTS?

seemingly there are few dosin' them. any feedbacks no matter negative or positive?

for me, they work well so far--i mean better than others ive tried or dosed

 

[allsps40]

I dont like TM additives because they dont have English instructions.

 

[snorvich]

Chemical stability (Alk, Ca+2 and Mg+2)
Low PO4 and nitrates
Good lights (14,000-20,000K color)
Good random water flow
Fish Poo!
Quality SPS frags

From my experience if you stay with the basics and keep it stable the color will be there.

Amen to that from my perspective.

 

[3.99AfterTaxes]

Please post some of your tank pics so we can see your results. If you can post before and after pics and tell us how you feel it helped your corals color improved by using supplements.I'll also post some recent tank pics for comparison. No offense but alot of people on this site post a lot of second hand information without even questioning it or validating for themselves.

I don't have any before pics, so my pictures will be subjective to your motivations.

Anyway, I'll be more than happy to snap a few shots when I feel like booting up the Mac.

FYI, you're calling me out on something of which I look at everyday in my living room. Wow, just wow...

See you later!

 

[REEF SMAC]

Chemical stability (Alk, Ca+2 and Mg+2)
Low PO4 and nitrates
Good lights (14,000-20,000K color)
Good random water flow
Fish Poo!
Quality SPS frags

From my experience if you stay with the basics and keep it stable the color will be there.

Throw in regular water changes, and this is the best advice thrown out so far, by far, IMHO:thumbsup:

 

[dvanacker]

I don't have any before pics, so my pictures will be subjective to your motivations.

Anyway, I'll be more than happy to snap a few shots when I feel like booting up the Mac.

FYI, you're calling me out on something of which I look at everyday in my living room. Wow, just wow...

See you later!

I think its perfectly reasonable for lifeaquatics to be skeptical of your claims. Just like you can be skeptical of his (that additives do very little).

You have to admit there is not much proof of anything here and to just rely on a few peoples observations is a little absurd. Especially considering the complexity of everything going on in our captive mini ecosystem.

No Im not saying anyone is wrong.....but what I'm saying is that no one has been proven right. How can they be when we a) don't know whats in the stuff b) can't test for it c) have no conclusive experiments under controls...etc etc.

 

[M Woodhill]

I dont like TM additives because they dont have English instructions.

Thanks to my choice during high school on second language, i can read german, hehe

 

[M Woodhill]

Chemical stability (Alk, Ca+2 and Mg+2)
Low PO4 and nitrates
Good lights (14,000-20,000K color)
Good random water flow
Fish Poo!
Quality SPS frags

From my experience if you stay with the basics and keep it stable the color will be there.

agree with all above except the light

i insist on 10000K plus few actinic+

to my expriences, sps grows very fast under such lighting

 

[thebanker]

Just bought myself a bottle of Pohl's. What effects should I look for to know that it is working?

 

[glennr1978]

Just bought myself a bottle of Pohl's. What effects should I look for to know that it is working?

Apparently better color and a growth explosion. I just ordered a bottle myself a few days ago, hopefully it gets here soon.

 

[LifeAquatic]

aa

aa

Just bought myself a bottle of Pohl's. What effects should I look for to know that it is working?

Ive never used the phols. I did go through an entire bottle of Elos Omega Amino and Elos Pro skimmer. I started dosing half the reccommended amount and slowly worked my way up to the full dosage. It was really hard to guage any signifacant color improvment so I didnt buy more bottles.

 

[thebanker]

Im dosing 2ml pohls, twice / week, since I have a non-zeovit system. I'd rather err on the side of caution with an unknown. The bottle calls for that dosage, daily.

Here's what's worked / not worked for my SPS colors.

• Brightwell Koralcolor - dosed as directed, did nothing after 3 months
• Seachem Reef Plus - dosing 5 ml / week, improvement in growth, slight color improvement in purple SPS. On a side note, a red goniopora I keep really likes this stuff.
• Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast - Dosed sparingly as food, all SPS seems to feed on it, didn't notice any color changes, but health is robust.
• Brightwell Restor - This is a peculiar additive, I believe it helped stop and reverse STN'ing on a seriatopora frag. It also acts as a food for my Ora Green Leather.
• Brightwell Ferrion - Iron supplement, it does bring out deeper greens in SPS. Easy on this stuff, it can aid pest algaes.
• Blue Life Precision Potassium - KCl supplement, it has increased pinks for me. I stopped dosing for fear of overdosing.

 

[PasserAngelfish]

in my experience,without highly efficient filtration,do not keep N & P as low as zero,do not clean nuisance algae frequently,no good color SPS displaying!

 

[thebanker]

No offense to anyone who is reiterating the point that SPS need good quality filtration, but I think that is a given.

For the purpose of the discussion in this thread, we just want to know what additives / foods make an impact on SPS color.

 

[LifeAquatic]

So Ive also dosed different coral foods to experiment with color. I went through two bottles of the following: Roti feast, Phyto feast, Brightwell zooplankton, coral frenzy. After daily feedings of each ( I like to mix all of them together) I can not say that there has been much improvement. My corals color/health were never bad to start with but I was curious what type of response feeding would provide. Its really hard to guage what the products do for the coral if anything. Other then food I infrequently dose potassium iodine and Kent trace elements. One thing that caught my eye is that all corals seem brighter the next day after dosing the kent trace elements. The colors just seem to pop more. Im going to buy another bottle of kent trace element and dose it solo to really guage results. I usually dose trace elements per instructions on bottle in between water changes.