HELP ME!!!! Millie problem (loosing color)

[Stuginski]

Hi Reefers!!!!

How are you????

So...I have been some color problems with my green millepora...her colors are fading....in true she is turning a little yellow I think...

She is growing slowly (in true all my sps are growing slowly)....and her polyps are not fully extended as before (all my other sps have a fine polyp extension)...no tissue lost...no pests (at least none that I can see)

The colors of all my other sps are very good (stylo is trully pink, tortuosa and echinata are trully blue.....)

My parameters seems fine: phosphates and nitrates are zero (API test), DK 7.5, Ca 420.....I use led lighting (same light setup more than 4 months now...without any bad result, the acro. is in the same position for more than 3 months...I don´t belive in light shock in this case). Huge skimmer, good circulation (2 koralias 750 gph) for 50 gallons reef.

I use zeolites and I dose vodka and mb7 every day (0.8 ml of vodka). I have just 3 fishes...and I feed well ...fishes fat and growing.

I don´t feed my corals ...just fish poop.

What is happenig???? What could I do to restore the green collor of my millie??? I´m starving my corals??? I have to use some supplement ??(iodine??????).

Thank´s guys...and sorry for my bad english!

Best regards

D.

 

[mike_cmu04]

Feeding the coral may fix the problem with the vodka dosing the nutrients may be so low the coral isnt getting the nutirients needed.

 

[losthere]

I would test psophates with a photometer. That is the only way to get accurate results.
High posphates can slow growth, but with vodka dosing IDK if that is the problem.

 

[Alex T.]

Well, I'll tell you what worked for me....

When I started to see some hair algae forming and my corals going pale I immediately assumed phosphate. I don't believe this is always the case. Wild reefs have much less phosphates than our tanks but yet from what I've seen there is always hair algae present. It doesn't take much of anything to grow nuisance algae. The right daylight kelvin and it's on its' way. We rush to judgement by running GFO and feeding less and sometimes the problem only gets worse and corals go even more pale.

I swapped my lights out to 20k Radium bulbs and only run them 6 hours per day. I also got rid of my daylight and actinic t5 supplements and went back to strictly Super Actinic VHO's (my corals never had better color than what these lamps provide). I also upped my feedings...not decreased them. I took the GFO offline and only run carbon and skim wet, while dosing vodka to the point of low, but measurable nutrients...not 0. Within a month the coralline algae was coloring from pale pink to dark purple and deep red. My hair algae had receded and was now dying off. I think many of us assume that our sps tanks need blazing light for most of the day. I've found this is not the case for me. They need just enough to trigger a response and no more. The sun moves over the reef all day, never hitting corals for more than an hour or two from the same angle until it fades away. Our corals receive etreme light from an overhead fixed position for x amount of hours. Frag farmers have excellent coloration that makes us ooh and ahh. I believe that aside from stability that their secret is the ever moving light rails that gently move back and forth hitting the corals from every angle. More light is worse than less IMO. I believe that when sps corals stop actively feeding because of photo inhibition (too much light) the other nuisance algae are there to jump in and help consume nutrients and proliferate. My tank is not viewable for most of the day other than actinics, but my corals have never had better polyp extension and color, and my fish have never been happier and fatter. Again, this is just theory but since corals have two ways of feeding (light and nutrients) I believe if you bombard them with too much of one that the other will shut down.

You say you feed well...but until we hear an amount it's only guessing. I feed 2 kinds of pellet (teaspoon each), 2 cubes of Mysis and a cube of bloodworms to my fish everyday in my 150 gallon SPS. I'm also experimenting with feeding a little more every week. Growth has picked up as well. With the vodka, MB7 and zeolites your adding you really need to feed that tank...more than you may think. If your skimmer's in top shape and maintained properly it's probably not skimming because it's got next to nothing to pull.

I also know that many people say never to dose iodine because it's replenished in your salt mix. I don't test for it and started dosing 3 drops of Kent Lugol's Solution per week. Within 2 weeks my blues are coloring back up and polyp extension is showing itself for the first time in a blue staghorn that has never extended polyps and has always grown slow. I'm not telling you to dose iodine, only showing that I and some very prominent TOTM winners do dose it without testing for it and have some of the most amazing colors and polyp extension I've ever seen.

Hope this helps. It worked for me.

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

Hi Reefers!!!!

I use zeolites and I dose vodka and mb7 every day (0.8 ml of vodka).

Millepora corals are really hardy acros. They tend to do better in higher nutrient systems vs other sps corals but loose there color in extremely low nutrient systems. This would explain whey your tort is doing fine vs the mille.

My suggestion is to SLOWLY stop dosing zeolites and vodka. Do a good 30% water change and just run carbon for a couple of weeks.