Getting that color??

[9thwonder]

geez, your pics are so overexposed that it's hard to see any color. They all look white :lol2:

+1

 

[allsps40]

I will play with the camera settings.

 

[smtank]

If you are not feeding your sps I think you should consider it. They look like the water is being over polished IMO. I feed every three days in a 28 gal tank and have no issues with phosphate or nitrates and I do not carbon dose. Just a thought.

 

[allsps40]

^ Yeah I feed them, plenty of fish poop,AAs and zooplankton. I just started the zooplankton again a few weeks ago. I hope these look better, darn crappy camera.

It takes good pics sometimes and crappy one other times.

 

[jwoyshnar]

To me, I've experience that keeping a little NO3 in there will help the coral grow a little better, no more than 5, corals will have enough food for them, just my opinion
My NO3 stay around 0~5 and my Blue, Purple Acros are all doing pretty well

+1. i totally agree with this. I attribute my success so far to this notion.

 

[allsps40]

Yeah the last time I tested a few weeks ago it was at 5 ppm. Heavier feeding and I took my fuge off line for few weeks to kill off CCA in the fuge. Did not work it came right back. I need to test again as I have not in a few weeks, so I will see if I have no3 still. All my sps are looking SO good, except a few newer ORA that need to color up from the tank change. I wish I could get better pics of the colors my sps are showing now. I will try my girls new Android phone, maybe that will take better pics.

 

[LifeAquatic]

Getting that color

Getting that color

Some reef systems do need additives to help growth and color. I find that it all depends on the salt you use. I used to use Pro Reef or HW Reefer and only needed to does 2 part and had great color. Now that I use Reef Crystal salt colors need a boost. I thing I am going to cut the vodka down as beeker said. I dont think my zenia likes it, cca is still going strong and turning brown. But all SPS seem to be doing very well.

Why dont you dump the reef crystals and go back to Pro reef of HW reefer? You stated it provided better color with less additives needed.

 

[allsps40]

I did dump the Reef Crystals, going with H2Ocean now. I will get pics when I can, been really busy lately with work and getting married soon.

 

[beeker]

I have decent color with using reef crystals, although my setup is led spotlights and the main factor i have with getting color is the fact that i have too many cool white leds over my setup, they tend to yellow/brown things out unless heavily influenced with Royal and cool blue

I'm doing my Vodka dosing 3 days a week now at 8 drops each time (sunday, wednesday and friday) are when i dose Vodka

I'm also dosing Elo's aminos at 2 drops per day
Elo's pro skimmer at 9 drops a day
Phol's Xtra at 2ml a day

So far my colors seem to be improving, i'm feeding a ton though as i just bought 3 gorgania's about 2 weeks ago and have been making sure to drop a ton of food in everytime i see their polpys out since i'm not sure if they are photosynthic or not yet

I'm going to take pics tonight or tomorrow and post them up in the morning

my green duncans have been looking like crap for the last month and that has kept me from taking new pics, but seeing as they still look like crap and have for the last 3 weeks of getting things stable and my water quality is perfect i guess i might as well take the pics, lol

 

[allsps40]

I did not stop using RC because of poor colors. I got 2 buckets of RC and 1 of IO that were contaminated with iron rich dirt and had to much ca and alk in the RC. I gave up the vodka months ago. Feeding more to my fish and feeding my corals again and getting my tank sper stable is really helping. I tired to take some pics on my lady's phone but they sucked also. I will take more with the digital cam later, but it is hard to get the colors in a pic.

 

[Brian Chong]

I agree 100%.............no need for all those additives mentioned in other posts.

:thumbsup: I like the K.I.S.S approach. makes it easier to find the problem and fix accordingly with quicker results.
Btw, allsps40, i read u had a minor issue with red turf algae (the short stringy kind). what worked for me was getting the biggest turbo snails i could find and watch them eat them away and then return them back to the lfs. I did this a few times, always works.

 

[Brian Chong]

:thumbsup: I like the K.I.S.S approach. makes it easier to find the problem and fix accordingly with quicker results.
Btw, allsps40, i read u had a minor issue with red turf algae (the short stringy kind). what worked for me was getting the biggest turbo snails i could find and watch them eat them away and then return them back to the lfs. I did this a few times, always works.

although it may take longer to see better results with coloration its worth it imo in the long run

 

[Brian Chong]

Yeah the last time I tested a few weeks ago it was at 5 ppm. Heavier feeding and I took my fuge off line for few weeks to kill off CCA in the fuge. Did not work it came right back. I need to test again as I have not in a few weeks, so I will see if I have no3 still. All my sps are looking SO good, except a few newer ORA that need to color up from the tank change. I wish I could get better pics of the colors my sps are showing now. I will try my girls new Android phone, maybe that will take better pics.

I got the android evo and the camera sucks. you should look into getting a budget dslr and a macro lens.

 

[Brian Chong]

Some of my sps are thin but all are strong branches. It takes a good firm bump to make frags even on the big birds nest. Yeah I am cutting back on the vodka only going to dose twice a week 2 drops, and have slowly increased my fish load from 3 to 6 fish. Chaeto is still alive and well just has slowed growth. I have alot of water flow in the tank, 2700 gph total flow.

I have 3825 gph in a 24x24x20 and i still think i dont have enough have enough. but my corals love the random turbulent flow

 

[allsps40]

Brian I could not get anything that would eat the CCA. I think I got it all now. I replaced all my sand in my fuge and clean the living crap out of it. I am cooking all my fuge LR as well and have my fuge lights off for a while again. After the first cleaning/removal attempt the CCA came back in th fuge even worse but I think I got it all now. I am also all about the KISS method, I have had better results now then when I was dosing. Dosing different trace elements only had my corals unhappy. I have 2700 gph in my 40B and I feel like it is perfect flow.

 

[jgonz_1979]

maybe you should try to feed your corals with some good coral food, try some coral frenzy, and some aminoacids.

that works for me.

 

[Brian Chong]

Brian I could not get anything that would eat the CCA. I think I got it all now. I replaced all my sand in my fuge and clean the living crap out of it. I am cooking all my fuge LR as well and have my fuge lights off for a while again. After the first cleaning/removal attempt the CCA came back in th fuge even worse but I think I got it all now. I am also all about the KISS method, I have had better results now then when I was dosing. Dosing different trace elements only had my corals unhappy. I have 2700 gph in my 40B and I feel like it is perfect flow.

sorry, I wasnt reading your thread in order. I wrote that before i read that you went back to the kiss method. I saw your video and didnt notice much flow. perhaps it was turned off because you were filming. My sps polyps are blowing really hard in all directions that sometimes i worry if its too much but since i get good polyp extension i just leave it alone. all a matter of preference and what works for you. Not sure what cca is but what i was thinking of was the turf algae that is short and stringy and super hard to pull off with your hands. for some reason the small turbos never ate them. only the huge ones. Good to hear everything is improving.

 

[allsps40]

maybe you should try to feed your corals with some good coral food, try some coral frenzy, and some aminoacids.

that works for me.

I feed Liquid Life Zooplankton to my sps. I think I will try out Rod's Food, hear good things about it. I do dose AAs, I use Seachem.

 

[allsps40]

sorry, I wasnt reading your thread in order. I wrote that before i read that you went back to the kiss method. I saw your video and didnt notice much flow. perhaps it was turned off because you were filming. My sps polyps are blowing really hard in all directions that sometimes i worry if its too much but since i get good polyp extension i just leave it alone. all a matter of preference and what works for you. Not sure what cca is but what i was thinking of was the turf algae that is short and stringy and super hard to pull off with your hands. for some reason the small turbos never ate them. only the huge ones. Good to hear everything is improving.

Yeah most of the power heads where off at the time. I have 2 Korillia 2s, a modded MJ600 plus my sump return. Here is a pic of the Cotton Candy Algae
/CCA

And as promised some updated crappy pics.

 

[allsps40]

Dont know how it posted 3 of the same coral?