Blue SPS

[Alex T.]

Do blue SPS corals grow slower than other colors? I've witnessed this in my tank and would like to know if others have noticed the same tendency.

 

[ms123]

My blues and purples seem to grow on par with the rest of the sps colors.

 

[turbot]

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination. but in my tanks present and past to get the dark blues I had mine a little lower in tank then the rest of the sps and i think that slowed there growth a little.

 

[aurora]

Blue humulis will grow very fast if given a lot of light and flow. Hoeksemai and Oregon Tort are very slow grower. I think most blues don't grow very fast in captive tank because they generally require a lot of light to do well.

 

[Alex T.]

I always remembered people saying that they need a lot of light. My blues are about 12 inches below the water with a 400 watt Radium above them. They all have their color but the surrounding SPS corals seem to be outpacing them. The only one that had a great growth spurt a few months back was an ORA Roscoe's Blue Acropora.

I have a very large skimmer for my system (ETSS 900xr) on a 150 gallon tank and have always noticed some of the best blues were in tanks that had large skimmers and dosed Lugol's Iodine Solution per recommended dosage. I started doing this a few months back and I have to say that the polyp extension and coloration in all SPS has improved noticeably...but especially in blue acros.

 

[Mikigo]

Depend on the coral. Oregon tort grow very slow. Cali tort grow like weed

 

[Alex T.]

One of the only maricultured pieces I ever bought was a small blue stag of some sort. It was fragged at MACNA here in Atlantic City and I bought a piece no larger than my thumbnail. That was two years ago this coming September. It is now only doubled in size and only recently (last 4 months) have I noticed it extending some polyps. I have absolutely no idea what coral it is. It's very striking under my VHO actinics. I just wish it would grow a lillte faster. I also bought a Indigo Blue Stag from an online retailer back in August. It hasn't gotten noticeably larger, but its' stalks are definitely getting thicker. I have a tremendous amount of flow in my tank. All my SPS seem to grow thicker than I would expect. I believe maybe they're getting thicker so that they can handle the flow before they sprout out.

 

[hk855]

A lot of the par we give our tanks is in the blue spectrum because it increases the fluorescence of our corals so we like that kind of light. Because the color of our corals is what they are not absorbing this would mean that much of the par is being reflected as that cool blue color you see. Not saying they don't use any blue spectrum but a 10k is probably going to be better than a 20k for growth more so than other corals. They absorb red and yellow while reflecting blue. So yea they probably need higher light requirements, especially in the red spectrum or a 10k bulb. Also about the Cali tort, they have a lot of green to them meaning they utilize that blue light, at least on part of them, while pure blue sps do less so. I've also noticed slower growth on very blue corals.

Another thing I heard lately to keep blue in a palmers milli requires a slightly warmer tank, not the question but something ive heard about blue sps.

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

Blue humulis will grow very fast if given a lot of light and flow. Hoeksemai and Oregon Tort are very slow grower. I think most blues don't grow very fast in captive tank because they generally require a lot of light to do well.

Ditto, most of the only true blues are torts, hoekesami, and some soft tissue acros. I've also notice that they type of lighting (par) is a major factor. Another big factor is flow. Tort don't really have too many canals opening for the polys to extend out of the acro skeleton. So, I assume that they depend of photosynthesizing more than eating off of the water column. However, with having few polyps extended out of the acro, when they do get a chance to extend out of the acro, it needs to be worth there time to do so. Healthy water column solves this issue.

Same thing with certain soft tissue acros. HTH

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

A lot of the par we give our tanks is in the blue spectrum because it increases the fluorescence of our corals so we like that kind of light. Because the color of our corals is what they are not absorbing this would mean that much of the par is being reflected as that cool blue color you see. Not saying they don't use any blue spectrum but a 10k is probably going to be better than a 20k for growth more so than other corals. They absorb red and yellow while reflecting blue. So yea they probably need higher light requirements, especially in the red spectrum or a 10k bulb. Also about the Cali tort, they have a lot of green to them meaning they utilize that blue light, at least on part of them, while pure blue sps do less so. I've also noticed slower growth on very blue corals.

Another thing I heard lately to keep blue in a palmers milli requires a slightly warmer tank, not the question but something ive heard about blue sps.

Great write up. That makes sense to me and I have always kind of thought the same way about the type of spectrum. I love talking photosynthesis!

 

[ryshark]

Another thing I heard lately to keep blue in a palmers milli requires a slightly warmer tank, not the question but something ive heard about blue sps.

The Palmers Blue Milli is one piece I have had a heck of a time keeping the blue it is capable of. It grows very quickly but I'm not happy with the color. My tank usually gets a few degrees warmer in the summer, we'll see if that makes a difference. Is there a thread on that or just word of mouth?

 

[Alex T.]

ryshark,

It's funny you say that. I don't know if I have a Palmer's Blue Mille, but one of my blue milleporas looked better last summer. Over the winter it took on more of a blue body with purple polyps and last summer my growth pictures showed it more electric blue. My tank hovers around 82 in the summer with a low of 78/79 and in the winter it's between 76 - 79 degrees.

Interesting. If anybody has some documentation showing this I'd love to see it as well.

 

[hk855]

The temp thing with palmers is just something I heard from a local reefer. I plan on getting a frag of the palmers from him and keeping my tank at his temp to see if I get similar results.

As for lighting I am currently running 4 54w t5's on an icecap ballast and have about 4" of spare room in my hood. I plan on adding led supplementation for actinic and some spotlighting on particular corals that seem to need more light with daylight LEDs. It's going to be an interesting set up when done.

 

[Jmason95]

The Palmers Blue Milli is one piece I have had a heck of a time keeping the blue it is capable of. It grows very quickly but I'm not happy with the color. My tank usually gets a few degrees warmer in the summer, we'll see if that makes a difference. Is there a thread on that or just word of mouth?

Interesting, my Palmers isn't as blue as I was hoping for either. I've had mine in the tank through summer and there's no difference in the color; my tank gets to about 80 in the summer. I've contemplated pulling it out for another blue Millie but I leave it hoping it will color up.

 

[ryshark]

Interesting, my Palmers isn't as blue as I was hoping for either. I've had mine in the tank through summer and there's no difference in the color; my tank gets to about 80 in the summer. I've contemplated pulling it out for another blue Millie but I leave it hoping it will color up.

Same here. I got my Rouge Milli and Palmer Blue Milli both the same day in March 2010. They were both very well colored up. I don't recall any difference in the summer when my tank was getting up to 82-degrees. I'll check it out this summer to see if anything happens. My Rouge is looking awesome and growing great too. My palmers is just growing great and mostly a brown color with blue tips. The picture below is from the day I got it, and it is the picture that makes me keep hanging on for hope that it will color back up someday.