Green SPS turn pale. Why?

[LordDarth Bane]

Not interested in starting another LED vs T5 debate......:fun4: I have been using T5 since 2005 and for more than 10 years I know the pros and cons......I love my LED so far. Cooler, energy efficient, no need to change bulbs frequently and the most important is that it looks cleaner on my tank top especially when mine is a rimless tank. I am not going back to cover my tank with a bunch of T5's.:dance:

Now guys, I don't understand you. A year ago when I started this thread you commented that the pale colours was due to LED issue and not lack of nutrient. I checked my water which PO4 was 0. I then raised the nutrient level. A year later now I report back with better colours after I raised the nutrient level, and you are still blaming the LED? Even thoug the results have proved otherwise?

Some of my frags are actually coming from another tank running LED. He is running Aqua Forest and some of his mother SPS have better colours than mine. I dont believe it is a pure lighting issue. Like I said I am planning to go full KZ products and I would like to hear which bottles are better or which are the must have. I think I'd at least get the Zeobak, Zeostart, CV (still using), and Xtra. Others such as B balance and PIF I am not quite sure.....

Cheers.

 

[Tripod1404]

Not interested in starting another LED vs T5 debate......:fun4: I have been using T5 since 2005 and for more than 10 years I know the pros and cons......I love my LED so far. Cooler, energy efficient, no need to change bulbs frequently and the most important is that it looks cleaner on my tank top especially when mine is a rimless tank. I am not going back to cover my tank with a bunch of T5's.:dance:

Now guys, I don't understand you. A year ago when I started this thread you commented that the pale colours was due to LED issue and not lack of nutrient. I checked my water which PO4 was 0. I then raised the nutrient level. A year later now I report back with better colours after I raised the nutrient level, and you are still blaming the LED? Even thoug the results have proved otherwise?

Some of my frags are actually coming from another tank running LED. He is running Aqua Forest and some of his mother SPS have better colours than mine. I dont believe it is a pure lighting issue. Like I said I am planning to go full KZ products and I would like to hear which bottles are better or which are the must have. I think I'd at least get the Zeobak, Zeostart, CV (still using), and Xtra. Others such as B balance and PIF I am not quite sure.....

Cheers.

I agree with that it being a low N and P issue. I would actually increase phosphate a bit more. The argument of natural sea water having much less N and P concentration is flawed. Mainly because concentration is a unit that really doesn't mean anything. It just shows grams, moles etc. per volume. It doesnt show you the total amount of phosphate or nitrate. You can have 1 ppm of nitrate in 40 gallon tank and a 400 gallon tank. Concentration is the same but the corals in the 400 gallon tank has access to 10 times more nitrate. Most cell surface transporters that are involved in importing these molecules inside the cells are "high affinity low capacity transporters", so they can uptake N and P even when their concentrations are in nano or picomolar range. So concentration doesn't matter, what matters is total amount in given water volume.

And same logic also applies to coral reefs where concentration doesn't mean anything because of the vast volume of water. Having 0.00005ppm of something in millions and millions of gallons of water is still having a lot of it. It is true that there are coral reefs that have very low P and N. Phosphate can be as low as 0.0005 ppm in certain reefs. But it is that low because the reef( corals, algae and etc) suck up all the phosphate from the surrounding water. As an example open ocean has phosphate levels between ~0.01-0.03 ppm but when that water passes over the Kaneohe bay reef in Hawaii, it drops to 0.0005 ppm. So the reef itself is generating that ultra-oligotrophic conditions. Now imagine how much water is passing over that coral reef every day and how much phosphate is being taken up by the reef. Not to mention P and N takesn up by the corals in the forms of planktonic foods. Here is a research on the Kaneohe bay reef;

Mass‐transfer limitation of nutrient uptake by a wave‐dominated reef flat community
https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.4319/lo.2004.49.5.1820



When we keep our tank with very low P and N, it is not replicating nature, it is starving corals. Becouse we dont have swells of P and N rich water constantly flowing over the corals in a closed tanl

 

[LexSkizzle]

Happy I found this thread. I bought two monti's home from the LFS that were colored a very deep red and green. They became very pale after about 2-3weeks in my tank. I immediately thought it was my LED's until I came across this thread. My parameters are all in check and just like the OP, my Phosphates and Nitrates are also at 0.

I will start bumping up the feedings today and up the bioload with some more fish.

My only concern now is other issues that can result from an increase in Phosphates and Nitrates like hair algae, diatoms, etc.? Let's see what happens..