Brown sps :(

Chipie

Chipie

Active member
Hi,
I,m a bit puzzled as to why my sps are brown. I have 0 nitrate, 0 phosphates and my parameters are good. The 20g long is lit by 24 3w cree leds. 12 rb, 8 cw and 4 nw. I use Ro/DI water.
I have no fish yet, just a few hermits, snails and a cleaner shrimp that i feed a bit daily. I also feed a bit of reef roid a few times a week. Tank has been running since november of last year. I lost 2 small fish to Ick or velvet a while ago so the tank has been fisheless for 2 months now.
I checked for flatworms and red bugs but there wasn't any.

Any idea as to why my sps stay brown?
 
I realize that even under pristine conditions, they tend to turn slightly brown prior to acclimation to the new environment, lightings, nutirent, etc...

Once they get use to, conditions are optimum, they will color up pretty fast :)

Nutrient export and lighting is extremely important...

I'm no expert though :) good luck!
 
my parameters are great....
400W XM20K bulbs...... with no color...
i changed bulbs, and within days, i could see amazing color differences.

that just goes to show a bulb can age and be a big problem... even though i had no algae growth, and no real problems... just lack of color.
now, not so much.

how about your lights??
 
I describe my lights and tank age in my first post. 24 X 3w cree leds, 12rb, 8cw and 4 nw. Tank was set up in November of last year. So it's about 4 months old.
 
Yeah I would recommend the Hanna checker for po4, it's expensive at first but the refills are cheap so in the long run you get more accurate results and it's cheaper.

I know my po4 levels are high now but that's only because I started to overfeed due to new fishes.
 
LOL i'm using a Hanna checker for phosphates,Alk and calcium. API is fo Nitrates. No algea at all.
 
I have SPS in my Main Display lit by T5s, and the same SPS in my sump (so same water parameters) lit by LEDs. The SPS in my DT are much more colorful than those in my sump, so I would say lighting might be the culprit.
Interestingly enough though, PE is better in my sump.
 
Heres my list of possibilitys; Too much light, tank is very small so perameters can change quickly, tank is newer so nutrients algae, and bacteria are likely reeking havock on the water still.

Can you share more about the tank? Does it have a skimmer, refugium, calcium reactor, limewater in top off, etc.

How often do you test and dose, water changes, tank temp?
 
Hi,
Yes i have a skimmer(bubble magnus 3.5 cone) and a 20g sump. No refugium yet. For now the refugium sump art is filled with LR. I have about 50lbs of LR in the system. about 2 inches sand. I do a 5g water change every 2 weeks. I admit that i haven't tested my water very often. I dose 2 part once a week to bring the levels of calcium and alk to what i want them. Magnesium just onece in a while. I'm looking for a doser right now.
Temp is conrolled by a reefkeeper light and varies about a degree during the day.

Automatic top off system.

My tank is only 12" deep. Maybe you are right about too much light. But wouldn't it bleech the corals intead of browning them?
 
Last edited:
Give them time to adjust to the new lighting. It takes some SPS 4 months to color up depending on how they looked when purchased.
 
Get other test kits. Or do this, make a new batch of water and test that water with the checkers. I have the same checkers as you and I'm disappointed with the results. Cal/alk ran high and phoso read .05 on a fresh batch of ro/di water! Then I did research of these checkers running high and what do you know, there are threads on the subject. Good luck
 
metalmulisha said:
Get other test kits. Or do this, make a new batch of water and test that water with the checkers. I have the same checkers as you and I'm disappointed with the results. Cal/alk ran high and phoso read .05 on a fresh batch of ro/di water! Then I did research of these checkers running high and what do you know, there are threads on the subject. Good luck
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up. I'll check on this for sure.
 
How did it turn out? I have several corals that I received and most were brown and kinda sickly. But after three weeks half are starting to color up and now I'm getting great PE.

+1 for lighting. It takes them a while to adapter to the tank.
 
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