I have all these colorful corals in my tank that are not showing their color. They are a brownish color instead of the blues, greens, pinks, and purples they are supposed to be. We have 2 metal halides 175w 14k (4 months old) and 2 96 watt compact flourescent actinic blue on a 90 gallon tank. I was thinking about dosing with vodka for the color but it says the reason to dose with vodka is to keep the NO3 and PO4 down, but mine are currently at zero, can and should I dose with vodka? Is there something else I need to be doing to bring the colors out of the corals?
Corals don't have enough color
- Thread starter Chato2701
- Start date
Mariner
New member
Not sure that your lights are the best for eye-popping SPS color. If your tank is a standard 90g you probably need 250w halides on each side to punch the light deep into the tank. The other thing is, if you stick with your current configuration using 14k bulbs, you may want your PC lights to be mostly blue supplement...if it were me, I'd go with one actinic and one 50/50 on the PC's.
FWIW,
Mariner
FWIW,
Mariner
the nitrate test is fine but the phosphate kit useless as the resolution isn't fine enough (need to be able to read .001-.005ppm which API can not). You can gauge your phophates somewhat by algae growth. unless your going to invest in a photometer a zero API reading plus watching the tank is probably as good as buying another kit. I think 175w are fine with a good bulb as I'd take my old pulse start ballast AB 13k 175w against almost any 250w 20k set up.
How long has the tank been up? what do you have for fish? what's the rest of your husbandry like (skimmer, flow, fuge ect)? what do you feed? what are your target parameters (dKH/ca/mg) and what method do you maintain them with? got any pics we can review?
The tank has been set up for 3 years. We have two clowns, yellow tang, spotted cardinal, yellowhead goby, and mandarin. We have small HOB refuge, two skimmers running, we have two 1200 mod maxi jets, two korlia 2s. I feed frozen brine, formula 1, and coral frenzy. dkH is 9, ca is 420 and don't know about the mg. we use kalk drip and supplement with seachem calcium. I will post some pics in a bit.
Mariner
New member
No, not at all. But I do agree with stanlalee, that the 175w could work with the proper bulb. If you want to switch to a bulb with more par, go with the Iwasaki 14k. Check out Sanjay's site for the best bulb/ballast configurations http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting
As I mentioned earlier, having plenty of blue light is also critical to color, IMO. I would definitely use your PC's for actinic supplement, although T5's would be much better for the purpose.
HTH,
Mariner
StrategicReef
New member
What bulb are you running? There are alot of weak bulbs in the 175W, IMO the only reason to run 175W is to use exclusively the iwasaki 14k (now called 15k), this is a strong bulb that beats out many 250w bulb so you save energy, and get good growth, but the color you get from this bulb will hardly ever look like other people's 20k tanks. That doesn't mean it won't look nice, just different.
t4zalews
65g Ritteri Tank
I think pics would provide a lot of information needed. Have you checked for red bugs? I had some real beauties get browned out because of these guys...after inteceptor they are on the recovery.
I also agree with higher lighting...I went from 2x150w to a 400w over my 65g and the colors just grew better and better.
I also agree with higher lighting...I went from 2x150w to a 400w over my 65g and the colors just grew better and better.
I've been told that putting two 400w metal halides on my tank would be way too much, one would only provide light for half the tank and would only be upgrading what I have now by 50w. I am looking into getting the iwasaki 14k bulbs now.
Here is a link to a slideshow for all the pictures I took yesterday of the tank, some are blurry because of the water flow.
http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad60/brittanyn2701/Fish tank 2-16-2010/
Here is a link to a slideshow for all the pictures I took yesterday of the tank, some are blurry because of the water flow.
http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad60/brittanyn2701/Fish tank 2-16-2010/
firebirdcrzy
New member
The "upgrade" of 50w really means nothing. A 400w with the right reflector (lumenbright) would punch so much better then the 2x175w, and would probably cover a 90gal pretty good. I have also not been a big fan of PC lights, you could try going with t-5's or even better VHO super actinic's.
