Coral color darkening, causes?

[deaddat]

I had a beautiful lobed brain coral that was red and orange with a bright green center and all of a sudden it became horribly dark red all over. There are a few speckles of green still left, but it's really nothing. I also have a Acan Enchinata that has orange and green edges and some what colors in the mouth area, but for the most part it is also this dark red / brown.

I have it on the sand bed, in a 20g H with 24" marineland reef capable LEDS along with ecoxotic stunner strips of blue and magenta. The ecoxotic LEDs are more for adding color, not light for the corals. For a while I covered up a lot of the white lights since it was insanely white and thought maybe the bright corals didn't like it. The Marineland LEDS only have four actinic lights. I just ordered some T5HO to replace my LEDS since I do not like them at all.

Both corals eat Fauna Marin LPS pellets easily, I was shocked to see the Enchinata eat pellets. All of my tank parameters are good and stable.

So what makes a bright colored coral darken, is it not enough light or to much light or something else? Can the colors come back?

 

[Reef Frog]

I think your LEDs were inadequate. Invest in good bulbs of the right spectrum snd I bet you'll see improvement, it's hard to say if completely vanished colors will return.

T5s can be much stronger then they're commonly given credit for, so light acclimation is going to probably be needed. I'm pretty confident in this answer as I have something similar going on in a 10g tank with a low lowered LED holding some corals I no longer need and have exoerienced what you have described.

 

[Reef Frog]

A combination of light intensity, spectrum & photoperiod will affect the symbiitic Algaes on the surface of the coral tissue. The algaes contain pigments which give them their colors. In lower light they increase in number making it appear darker to us. This response is an attempt to increase food production via photosynthesis. All based on my understanding of material I've read. No expert here so there may be more to it as well.

 

[Puffyluv]

Yup, lots of zoozanthellae in there. And yeah, they will come back...given lots of patience and adequate lighting.

 

[deaddat]

Thanks for the replies! I have my fingers crossed. Both corals still show some color under actinics, especially the echinata. This entire time I thought rainbow corals wanted to be kept in the dark :angryfire:

I ordered Aquaticlife 24" 4lamp T5HO for my 20g H, hope this improves it! I also ordered all ATI bulbs of (2)Blue+, Purple Plus, and a aquablue.

 

[Reef Frog]

The ones you mention do indeed want more subdued light, but that statement applies when the lighting you have is robust. Yours sound a little light starved to me based on the fixtures you were using. Best of luck with the new fixtures. Hard to go wrong with T5.

 

[deaddat]

I just wanted to give a little update, changing from the Marineland reefcapable LEDS to Aquaticlife T5HO with ATI bulbs has started to bring color back to my brain coral. I also moved some rocks around so it wouldn't have a branch hanging over it partly and gave it more open space/light. The pictures from left to right were taken on 12-31-14, 1-11-15, and 1-17-15, I can't wait for the day the brain returns to it's full color. The first one was under blue lighting and you can see how dark it was even then! The color started to slowly show but wasn't very visible under the day lights and now under the day lights you can see the colors starting to pop out and spread. ****The last two are how it looked when I originally got it****

 

[deaddat]

Just wanted to give people an update to show how drastically the colors have came back after 3 months of the last picture.

 

[aromano]

I had that light on 20 galH and its a very good choice for those LPS