Garf Bonsi Placement in my 90g

[Lowefx]

Here is my 90 gallon Deep Blue. I have 2 150w MH and 96w PC's.
Im currently battling HA and the pictures are not the best from my Droid. Sorry. And without listing all of my water parameters, (just upgraded from a 55-90 with a big sump and skimmer)
In these pictures you can tell that #2 is higher in the column than #1, you can also see that the color is less purple and more green. I thought these corals needed high par lighting, but #1 is lower in the tank which is less par, but has better colors. If anyone has better experience with these colony's, please let me know what you have done to make them more colorful and grow faster.

Close up of #1

Close up of #2

I am almost tempted to take one colony and put it on the sand bed just to see what happens. I dont want to risk loosing a colony tho....

 

[LoJack]

I keep mine mid level in my tank under a 8x54 ATI Sunpower. It does well there.

I have a frag high in the tank, and one low in the tank, and both of those are also doing well. I think its quite a hardy species, flow being more important

 

[Lowefx]

I guess my main concern is getting more color (Purple) and Polyp extension in #2. But that could also be from other issues (over feeding)

Correct me if i am wrong, but these are "Garf Bonsi's" correct?

 

[trueblackpercula]

I have mine mid way down under LEDs with intensity set to 70% and it's purple. It's not about the par but more about the correct spectrum,flow,nutrients etc

 

[Peter Eichler]

I guess my main concern is getting more color (Purple) and Polyp extension in #2. But that could also be from other issues (over feeding)

Correct me if i am wrong, but these are "Garf Bonsi's" correct?

If you didn't buy them as GARF Bonsai with some known lineage then that's not what they are. It's hard to say for sure. It's hard to say for sure, but from the pictures they don't strike me as being garf bonsai and look more like a typical tricolor A. valida.

 

[Lowefx]

I swapped for them, so the name may have gotten mixed up....But the tricolor A. Valida sounds familiar. Are the requirements the same? Ill have to do a little more research on them.

 

[trueblackpercula]

Valida loves flow and high light

 

[Lowefx]

The high light seems to turn the frag more green than purple. Just checked pos. .07 (need a water change thus weekend) and nitrate was 0.00
Any other recommendations?

 

[jda]

If it is true Garf Bonsai, I have always had it get super intense purple under tons of light.

It is gonna be really hard IMO to track down specific things to help if the P is a .07. IMO, get this down before doing much of anything.

 

[trueblackpercula]

If it is true Garf Bonsai, I have always had it get super intense purple under tons of light.

It is gonna be really hard IMO to track down specific things to help if the P is a .07. IMO, get this down before doing much of anything.

Can you define tons of light please ?

 

[jda]

There have been times where I have run 6x 250W HQI with 14K phoenix bulbs over a standard 120G - 4x2x2. Currently, I only run 3 of them (one fixture) - the bonsai is probably 5-6" under the surface in-between 2 lights so it gets hammered by both. The Bonsai is at probably 400 PAR under 14K Phoneix. The 6 light (2 fixture) days was not quite double that PAR. The true GARF would also grow quite well outdoors when I was in Missouri at over 1200 PAR - I have dual standard 125G tanks on my back patio (fun times).

 

[Lowefx]

Strange because I have 2 colonies and one is more purple than the other, because it is higher in the tank. Water change will be this weekend.

 

[MammothReefer]

I've always had better colouration from my bonsais when I have them lower in the tank.

 

[Lowefx]

yeah, im going to try to put #2 at the bottom of my 90 gallon and see what happens. I will leave #1 in its current spot.