Chalice Fading and Browning.

[Baconbandit]

i bought 6 chalice frags 3 weeks ago and last week i noticed a few were losing color. a mummy eye frag went from a beautiful green to an orange-ish color. they've all been eating mysys and my parameters are good. i have them on my sand bed in a 15 gallon under 4x24w t5 (frags 14-15 inches from bulbs).

could this be due to too little or too much light? my mushrooms on sand bed had to be shaded because the light was too intense for them, but zoas seem to be doing well mid tank.

i've glued a small "stand" out of egg crate that stands aprox 4 inches off the sand bed hoping to get the frags on it tomorrow and see if a little more light helps. any other suggestions are appreciated.

 

[MondoBongo]

could certainly be the lights. did you light acclimate them?

it could also be a variety of other parameters. salinity, alk, temp, etc...

not all corals are created equal, even similar species. for example what may be an acceptable level of alk for one might be much to the dislike of another.

however i would probably consider the lighting first.

 

[Baconbandit]

a couple of things i forgot to mention, i've been at 0 nitrates for a while due to a few acropora colonies i picked up but if anyone can confirm chalices prefer nutrients i can try to raise it to 5 ppm or so. also, i had a turbo that kept knocking things over and the chalice was one of it's victims. it was stuck face down in the sand for about a day and a half.

i've included a couple of pictures. one is of the mummy's eye as it was last night and the other is of my bulbs, which i hadn't really noticed.. seems they need to be replaced.