blue sps fading color, help?

[cjilge]

Only my blue acro's seem to fade, not bleached or rtn just a lot lighter than they were. no changes to regimine in awhile, long while. here are the spec's

150gl dt twv aprox 175

6 bulb t5 w/ led supl
bulbs are all ati 3 blu+, 1 aquablue spec, 1 procolor, 1 of the new coral grow ati bulbs

sal- 1.024
temp- 78.9
alk- 8
cal- 480
mag- 1450
nitrate- .2
phos- 0 but i'm sure its there
ph- 8.2

I dose vodka at 5.5ml per day, I have an aprox 18 gl fuge with 7-8 dif macro algea, and 8" sand bed, alk mag & cal are dosed with a bubble magus doser and are very stable no fluctuations. Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[sjfishguy]

I would cut back on the vodka to 5.0mL. Whenever my acros start to get light (especiall the blue) I cut back on the vodka a litte and things darken back up over a few days. That is where I would start.

 

[Alex T.]

I had this issue when carbon dosing as well. As long as everything else seems in order, a drop of Lugol's Solution Iodine brought out my blues. I know that a lot of people cringe from dosing iodine, but many people who've lost blue and purples while carbon dosing were able to bring them back from iodine supplementation. I used Kent's Lugol's Iodine and it worked. Many ULNS systems like Zeovit use additives to tweak colors as well.

I just read the directions and cut the weekly dosage in half. Within a few weeks I saw the strong blues and purples. I never raised the dosage because I was happy with what I was seeing. Many who dose organic carbon or run any of the aforementioned bacteria driven systems believe that certain elements are stripped from the water before we can replenish them with a water change.

 

[cjilge]

Thanks, thats where I was heading and was looking into red sea coral colrs D. I will cut the vodka slowly back and see what happens to start. I have a high bioload with fish and coral and the vodka seemed to help keep other issues in check. Ill keep it posted on progress.

Thanks again.

 

[Adrnalnrsh]

Any progress?

 

[bobkill]

Yeah any progress

 

[hollister]

Where's the placement?
You said new bulb. If you did then you would want to reduce the light time for a few days to allow readjustment to better light.

 

[cjilge]

Where's the placement?
You said new bulb. If you did then you would want to reduce the light time for a few days to allow readjustment to better light.

I didnt acclimate bulb since i only changed one bulb. I do like the new bulb by ati. I lowered the vodka by 1ml per day and dosed the coral colors D, started at 10mls per day but slowly drought it back to a single weekly dose of 50ml. All colors seemed to deepen after a few weeks