Green SPS turn pale. Why?

[LordDarth Bane]

My current tank seems couldn't keep green SPS, which never bothered me before in previous tanks and green was probably the easiest colour. So I am after some thoughts.

Tank is 3' x 2' x 2'.
Water: KH=8, Ca=400, Mg=1300, NO3 & PO4 undetectable all with Salifer kits.

Ok. Water paras have been stable and nothing really wrong. I probably know the possible causes, which are too strong light and too low nutrient.

I have two Hydra 26HD hanging 9' over water surface and these are the setting. 4 hours max with 4 hours ramping up and 4 hours ramping down.

UV 40
Violet 30
Royal Blue 90
Blue 85
Green 25
Deep Red 30
Cool White 65

Nothing wrong so far? Water being too clean with too low nutrient? Probably, I know. There are not much algae on my rocks except those I believe are biofilms. I have started dosing KZ Xtra Special (3ml every two days) and CV (3 drops every night) since May but these don't really help the green.

The problem that buggers me is that other colours are fine, red, blue, purple.......only green turn pale. Why is that?

I have a refugium but I don't think the marco algae inside use up all the iron as I do 10% water change bi weekly. Should I try dosing iron?

Lets see some photos.

 

[LordDarth Bane]

This big one has been around a year. Nice grow but pale.

This one I put it in area with lower light too see if too strong lighting was causing the bleaching. OK, pale.

This was a dark green purple frag but as it grows it seems losing the green pigment.

And this one I just bought 3 weeks ago to see if the problem is still there, and it proves it is.

And this is what it should be (photo from LFS) Greem is losing just in 3 weeks.

 

[Scorpius]

We need water parameters. Could be a host of issues.

 

[LordDarth Bane]

Water parameters stated above. KH=8, Ca=400, Mg=1300, NO3 & PO4 undetectable all with Salifer kits

 

[Hentz]

Your alk/calcium seem fine for the lower nutrients so I wouldn't think it was an issue with that.

Could just be simply lack of nutrients. How many fish do you have? How often do you feed? I would start by slowly raising up your nitrates a little bit and see how that effects your corals. Or even if you have a heavy export nutrient method, feed a bit more if your system can handle it. I've found that heavy feeding for my Acropora during my ULNS with ZEOvit made them explode in growth and color and the opposite when I slowed down on feeding.

Also, your Cool Whites on the Hydra's are quite high. I'd recommend turning them down to about 25-30% max. I can send you a profile if you'd like that is mock setup from the Ecotech Marine's SPS AB+. I've used it on my Hydra 26HD just before I upgraded and had daily growth on Acropora.

That could simply be your issue right there, your tank may require lower intense lighting. Acropora with low nutrients and lower alkalinity do not tend to be happy with higher intensity. In my tank, raising Cool Whites from 25% to 30% made them incredibly unhappy. Do not let the Cool Whites fool you, they're extremely powerful in LED's.

 

[LordDarth Bane]

Thanks. I am using the Prodibio method so I think my water is probably too clean. I am going to reduce the dosage and see if it helps.

Will try to reduce the cool white too. May you please post your Hydra setting?

I have a question though. Do green SPS generally prefer dirtier water? I believe lacking of nutrients is a possible cause but why the other colours don't fade as well?

 

[Hentz]

Thanks. I am using the Prodibio method so I think my water is probably too clean. I am going to reduce the dosage and see if it helps.

Will try to reduce the cool white too. May you please post your Hydra setting?

I have a question though. Do green SPS generally prefer dirtier water? I believe lacking of nutrients is a possible cause but why the other colours don't fade as well?

That could be it.

Yes, I will send them to your PM in just a few minutes. The guy who made it is on here in the AI Hydra Settings Thread.

And I wouldn't say green do, but all SPS prefer something in the water. Every tank is different and each coral reacts differently to everything.
Lacking nutrients seems to be the cause of your pale corals along with high light intensity. They're starving and releasing zooxanthallae, paling out and eventually dying off. With little to no nutrients and 7-8dKH, your corals will likely not be able to handle the intense lighting.

Running an ULNS is fine as long as you're adding the appropriate amino acids and foods to help them live. You will get a pastel and bright color running lower nutrients due to the release of zooxanthaellae as I mentioned above. However, after running ULNS, I'm realizing I'd rather not run an ULNS but run a system with a little nutrients.

Going the route of reducing nutrients with a Skimmer and Chaeto Reactor instead of a Reactor with ZEOlites stripping my nutrients to nothing. I've had great success with ULNS and ZEOvit. However, I've never had the insane and saturated colors due to the lack of nutrients available for my Acropora, in my opinion.

 

[w3bbo]

Many green corals are actually in the process of changing to their 'true' colour.

If you're looking for a more saturated look you need to up your nutrient levels (no3/po4).

 

[Ricardo18]

I would not chase % readings for your lights, as there are so many variables on what the actual PAR results are that are hitting your corals.
PAR is what counts. PAR is the bottom line. Go get a meter.300 PAR for SPS is the target.150 for Softies.

 

[reefmutt]

I think most of your sps look on the pale side..
I wouldn't touch anything but raise your n and p a bit..
Do you use prodibio's reef booster? it's pretty rich..
or add a couple fish..

 

[jda]

Clean water makes for awesome looking SPS - great contrast and pop. I doubt that you are cleaner than the ocean. I am .05-.10N and .005P and everything looks great.

You are not going to want to hear this, but put a few T5 on there. It will help. Although the other pieces are out of focus a bit, their color looks a bit pale too, but perhaps it is just the photos.

 

[LordDarth Bane]

That could be it.

Yes, I will send them to your PM in just a few minutes. The guy who made it is on here in the AI Hydra Settings Thread.

And I wouldn't say green do, but all SPS prefer something in the water. Every tank is different and each coral reacts differently to everything.
Lacking nutrients seems to be the cause of your pale corals along with high light intensity. They're starving and releasing zooxanthallae, paling out and eventually dying off. With little to no nutrients and 7-8dKH, your corals will likely not be able to handle the intense lighting.

Running an ULNS is fine as long as you're adding the appropriate amino acids and foods to help them live. You will get a pastel and bright color running lower nutrients due to the release of zooxanthaellae as I mentioned above. However, after running ULNS, I'm realizing I'd rather not run an ULNS but run a system with a little nutrients.

Going the route of reducing nutrients with a Skimmer and Chaeto Reactor instead of a Reactor with ZEOlites stripping my nutrients to nothing. I've had great success with ULNS and ZEOvit. However, I've never had the insane and saturated colors due to the lack of nutrients available for my Acropora, in my opinion.

Hi mate may you please check PM? Still haven't got your hydra setting. Thanks.

 

[Horace]

Greens are the first and most obvious colors you will lose when nutrients are TOO low. I had this problem in my tank for over a year until I finally figured out the cause. I changed lights several times, added all kinds of additives etc, and finally after just increasing feeding by 2-3x, my colors exploded and growth was out of control. IMO you are much better off having nitrate at 2-5ppm than you are 0. Our tanks are too barren of food to have no nitrate. The nitrate appears to serve as an artificial food source in our closed envs. Back in the day it was advised to strip nitrate/po4 to zero....but when is started looking at tanks my buddies had, one (which was the best tank i have ever seen) had nitrate of 40ppm (it was a barebottom tank). So nitrate is nothing to fear imo, and in many cases actually is helpful to an extent.

 

[Horace]

Clean water makes for awesome looking SPS - great contrast and pop. I doubt that you are cleaner than the ocean. I am .05-.10N and .005P and everything looks great.

You are not going to want to hear this, but put a few T5 on there. It will help. Although the other pieces are out of focus a bit, their color looks a bit pale too, but perhaps it is just the photos.

Sorry, but I 100% disagree.

The ocean while having 0/0 it also had a HUGE amount of food available. IMO his corals are starving, and this has little to nothing to do with light. If i had not seen this in my own tank I probably wouldnt think this either. WHich is why I changed lights so many times thinking it had to be lights, and since the ocean had no po4/no3, then my tank certainly wouldnt suffer w/out them. I was dead wrong.

 

[jda]

Natural reefs that SPS come from are very much oligotrophic - there is next to no food available. Wherever you read or heard that that is a HUGE amount of food in the ocean is wrong. The corals have to compete for that near zero N and P and very little to filter feed from. There are a lot of tanks that are happy with higher N and P, but the ocean is not one of those places. I have seen a lot of nice tanks with elevated N and P, but the best of the best keep NSW parameters.

 

[ssgss gogeta]

I'm gonna agree and disagree with the natural ocean and sps with low n and p. Agree the natural ocean has low n and p, however where the coral is has high density fish life there has to be some localized increase in nutrients on the reef compared to the general measurements of the ocean.

Second I have corals taken from the reef that looked bland and after 6 months in a reef tank with 2.5-5n and 0.03phos absolutely blossom as far as color and pe, much more than it did in the ocean. It looked like a completely different acro


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[Horace]

Natural reefs that SPS come from are very much oligotrophic - there is next to no food available. Wherever you read or heard that that is a HUGE amount of food in the ocean is wrong. The corals have to compete for that near zero N and P and very little to filter feed from. There are a lot of tanks that are happy with higher N and P, but the ocean is not one of those places. I have seen a lot of nice tanks with elevated N and P, but the best of the best keep NSW parameters.

That may be true, however IMHO most tanks with zero N and P look very unhealthy.

For me chasing zero N and P was harmful and pointless. Within weeks of feeding more and allowing N and P to elevate a bit my corals grew like mad and went from pastel to eyepopping colors. So while some may have success with it...I won't ever try to do that again. IMO it's pointless

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[jda]

I agree that lower N and P tanks are probably not for everybody and folks can have great results otherwise. I just think that it is important to know that the ocean where acropora come from DO NOT have nutrients and to inform folks that if they have heard otherwise, then it is not accurate... it matters on some level.

I am a LN guy... not ULN. I don't see the point in ULN either.

I do find that the acros will grow quite a bit faster with P under .01, but there are lots of articles and studies that discuss calcification being easier with low P. I have also found that coralline stops growing much above .2 or .3... which some people might be totally happy with.

 

[LordDarth Bane]

Greens are the first and most obvious colors you will lose when nutrients are TOO low. I had this problem in my tank for over a year until I finally figured out the cause. I changed lights several times, added all kinds of additives etc, and finally after just increasing feeding by 2-3x, my colors exploded and growth was out of control. IMO you are much better off having nitrate at 2-5ppm than you are 0. Our tanks are too barren of food to have no nitrate. The nitrate appears to serve as an artificial food source in our closed envs. Back in the day it was advised to strip nitrate/po4 to zero....but when is started looking at tanks my buddies had, one (which was the best tank i have ever seen) had nitrate of 40ppm (it was a barebottom tank). So nitrate is nothing to fear imo, and in many cases actually is helpful to an extent.

Great feedback. I agree that ultra low N P could not be a problem IF the corals get the nutrient from other sources. Eg being fed constantly by planktons. They are presented in the ocean which our systems lack of.



I have been dosing KZ Xtra Special and feeding for 3 months but not much improvement. There are only 4 fish in the tank and I don't want to add a lot more.



What else should I try? How about dosing AA? As the Xtra Special contains AA so I haven't dosed extra AA. But I wonder if Xtra Special could substitute AA.



There is a bottle of BWA Restor left. Maybe I will add this as well.



Generally I do not worry about PO4 being too low. I tried not to really heavy feeding as I am afraid the increase PO4 would go into the rocks and cause algae problem later. Shall I try dosing NO3 alone?



I could not find KNO3 locally. How about those nitrogen fertilizers for plants? I could get one with higher N and low P and K ratio"¦.

 

[reefmutt]

A readily available source of kno3 is Seachem Flourish Nitrogen. It is for freshwater planted tanks. I have used it extensively over the years for nitrate additions. Works great.
Not particularly concentrated or cheap but easy to find.