I give up trying to get colorful sps

^^^ +1

your tank is pretty full of coral,maybe your not using enough zeo.try this for a few weeks. you said you use zeo sparingly? up it a little.
Monday,wed,fri-6ml phols xtra
tues and thurs 8 drops of C.V.

its worth a shot.
 
First I think your tank looks great!!

I guess im missing where you said that you are using Zeo. But I use Phols, Amino Acid and Coral Vital every day and have great colors. I also run my nitrates between 5-10 and like to keep them around 5 and just a trace of Phosphates. In my opinion you have to have something for the corals to get their nutrients from which will give them the pigmentation for the color.

You have a great looking tank!!
 
Wow, what a response and thanks for the comments,

Originally Posted by stancfii,
Instead of going back to MH, can you supplement with a couple T5s?
I have a couple of T5s still sitting in the shed so I might place 2 back on one side of the tank along with the led's and see if that makes a difference to the corals on that side of the tank for comparison.

Originally Posted by JP SPS,
Are you running GFO, Carbon, or Biopellets?
I run Rowaphos in a reactor which I turned off a week ago, I tested for Po4 yesterday and it still reads 0 with hanna so this tells me the P04 is being used up, though will test again in a few days.

Originally Posted by rsaha,
Do the frags you give away exhibit better colour in their new homes?
I don't know I have never seen them, I have given some to lfs to pass onto club members when they come in. I do know club members have told me they are doing fine and look great , at the next meeting I will ask about color.

Originally Posted by Bo0sted_Rafi,

IMO your tank looks great. I have leds and i notice great and brilliant colors but i think the problem can be the spectrum you have in your fixture and too much hours with white lights on. I just give 4 hours of full lights in 9 hours total. 2 hours of full blue and 3 hours of blue with the white at lowest % to mix it with the blues and they looks like 420 in t5. I think, The colors depends in the blue lights. try that
I always thought I needed more white light so I had my white on for 3 hrs then both blue/white for 5 hrs and then blue for 1 hr. I have now changed to your suggestion. I'm going to place two T5s on one side, what would your suggestion be for lighting times using these also.

Originally Posted by Epicreefer,
If your lights are 50/50 b/w then you could just be hittingn them with too much white. I work on a very large tank with 10k and 454 cannon LEDs and when I take a picture it looks very blue. In person it's about 14k. Many of the sps are showing good color similar to yours, a bit brighter, but not all are amazing, green digi is very green like your green stag. Other sps are a little harder. I found by reducing the white colors improved a bit. I would add maybe a blue+ t5 and the 3-4-2 hour dawn dusk effect with less white hours, maybe expand that to 3-5-3. I got great results with oyster feast too but don't currently use it, maybe you can find another pulverized bivalve product like it in Australia or an artificial like reef roids. Also I found the liquid supplements like amino acids when over dosed browned corals. They work well in the ulns they are designed on where most corals would bleach and die to bring the color back. A side note, it can take 6 months to a year for zeovit to stabilize on an existing mature reef and bring the colors out. The older the system with more nuteients in the sand and rock the longer. And if you keep feeding heavily it can extend it. I've always had best results with small feedings of fish and coral food every other day for fish 1-2x a week for coral, small water changes every two weeks and no supplements, just gfo carbon and a skimmer. Your tank looks very good btw, just needs a bit of tweaking to get good colors and this is often what takes the most trial and error and time. I would reduce white LEDs first, then cut phols extra and see what happens over the next few weeks or two months.
Going to try more blue and supplement with a couple of blue T5s.
I have tried the red sea program for a few months and to be honest I never noticed any difference for the cost. I do feed reef-roids twice a week, I also use red sea reef energy A/B twice a week because I have some left.
I will try more smaller feeding often rather than heavily once a day.

I have never used Zeo products, I don't think I have even seen them in our lfs. The majority of comments tend to be towards my lighting so I will try all above suggestions first (though slowly) before I will use any more supplements.

Thanks again John
 
Are you getting consistent enough of water from the ocean?

Everything looks great. I would change back to some high quality metal halides - that looks like a somewhat typical LED driven SPS tank to me.

I think that's a terrible statement to make , I think his tank is amazing
 
Some corals are brown ( DNA )

Maybe was just bad luck with some corals.

But your tank is very nice, congrats !!

I would not change anything

Best Regards
 
Yup if you arebt looking to redo the led setup and get a full spectrum, definitely suppliment with some t5 actinic and super actinics to get what you're missing from the rb/cw combo...because yeah you are missing some spectrums with that ratio....like everything below 450.
 
barramundi, I give the RB for 2 hours first @70% and its takes 60 minutes to ramp to this percent. then i get white to the lowest percent (12%) for 1:30 more an then, 3:30 hours with the blue lights, my whites gets to 50% for 4 hours. Same when shuts down. I saw great coloration in my frags and a friend of mine who's using Zeo for years saw my tanks and he was impressed with the coloration.

Ive been thinking the posibility about adding 2 T5 tubes just to get light in the shadows areas the leds makes in the branches of the corals
 
I would be ecstatic if my tank ends up looking as nice as yours!

What photo editing software do you use? IMHO, many (too many) photos are Photoshopped into something completely different than what they look like in person.
 
Originally Posted by Denadai,

Some corals are brown ( DNA )

Maybe was just bad luck with some corals.

But your tank is very nice, congrats !!

I would not change anything

When I purchased most of my sps colonies and frags they were stunning colours, just like the new growth on them.

Here is a point to ponder on, all of the new growth on the tips is as bright and colourful as when I bought them, then it slowly turns brown as the coral grows.

If I could get the new growth to stay colourful I would have a truly stunning sps coral.

Originally Posted by Bo0sted_Rafi,
barramundi, I give the RB for 2 hours first @70% and its takes 60 minutes to ramp to this percent. then i get white to the lowest percent (12%) for 1:30 more an then, 3:30 hours with the blue lights, my whites gets to 50% for 4 hours. Same when shuts down. I saw great coloration in my frags and a friend of mine who's using Zeo for years saw my tanks and he was impressed with the coloration.

Ive been thinking the posibility about adding 2 T5 tubes just to get light in the shadows areas the leds makes in the branches of the corals

Thanks, i will try changing my lighting and see how the sps are going after a few weeks.

Originally Posted bybilldogg,
I would be ecstatic if my tank ends up looking as nice as yours!

What photo editing software do you use? IMHO, many (too many) photos are Photoshopped into something completely different than what they look like in person.

Lol, I am so pleased that you like it, some of the comments I have received has made me realise just how good my aquarium has become, though I see it everyday I may not notice it as much as everyone else. I will try some of the information I have received to see if I can improve it, if something works we will all benefit from the information.
 
Hello Barramundi,
Reviewed your pics. Thank You for posting. Please dont take this negative, your corals don't look bad. However, my experience leads me to speculate that if you were to check within your rock pile you will see that you have a huge build up of debri in your sand underneath the the rocks. I have seen many deep sand systems exhibit the same issues you are having. I always use deep sand beds myself, and I have run into the same symptoms as you are seeing. My solution is to use a remote deep sand bed and to keep my main system as open as possible. This allows me to keep the areas within my rock-work much cleaner. Always a struggle , especially if you keep fish, but anything we can do to reduce buildup of debri within our systems will help. Once again, nice tank but you might be happier with your results if you tried a more open rock work set up.
Regarding comments about your lights. Some of the posters recommend halides over LEDS. I have and do use both in my systems. Halides are awesome. It is much easier to get great colors under halides, no matter what the wavelength you use. They are also hot and expensive to run.

LEDs on the other hands are a little more challenging. However, if your chemistry is right and you use a multi wave-length LED fixture, then extremely good colors can be developed. I doubt that any issues you are having are the result of your lights.

Once again, nice tank but you will most likely get better results as you fine-tune your nutrient management.
Regards


When I purchased most of my sps colonies and frags they were stunning colours, just like the new growth on them.

Here is a point to ponder on, all of the new growth on the tips is as bright and colourful as when I bought them, then it slowly turns brown as the coral grows.

If I could get the new growth to stay colourful I would have a truly stunning sps coral.



Thanks, i will try changing my lighting and see how the sps are going after a few weeks.



Lol, I am so pleased that you like it, some of the comments I have received has made me realise just how good my aquarium has become, though I see it everyday I may not notice it as much as everyone else. I will try some of the information I have received to see if I can improve it, if something works we will all benefit from the information.
 
Hi,I beleive you are talking about OceanCoralWhite and HyperViolets.Can you sugests where those leds can be purchased with international shipping?I would like to try those leds.Thanks

If you d try changing you LEDs then , as this poster recommends, expanding your spectrum is the way to go. I have had poor results in the past trying to get great colors on all the different corals using the traditional 2 blue /2 white mix of colors.
However, I experienced immediate improvement when I expanded the spectrum of my LED fixtures.
 
I had a similar issue with lighting. I had fiji pink and purple t5s running with my AI blues. The t5s helped bring out color that was already there. They did not increase the the overall color of the coral. I then added 2 60in full spectrum leds on the front and back of the tank. Those have made a difference in the actual color of the coral.The strawberry shortcake went from dark purple to lime green,red and blue in a month. I also turned down the white in the AIs to 42%.

Whatever you decide to do take very small steps you have FAR more to lose at this point then to gain.
 
I thought I would post a full tank shot as it's been 11 days since I posted on here.

I have changed my lighting schedule having more blue light for a longer period.

My Po4 has shot up to 0.05 three days ago so on this day I turned my reactor back on but now today it is at 0.12 so I have changed my Rowaphos.

My No3 is at 2.0, I presume this is because I have changed to feeding more often rather than two times per day.

I have noticed that the new growth is a lot more colourful so I will keep to this schedule, today I did a 10% water change instead of my regular monthly 20 %

My question is, how do I keep my Po4 stable, I know by changing my rowaphos it will go down back to 0. I know regular water changes will keep it down but that would not keep it stable at Po4-0.03 and No3 -2.

0211839172_zps0e2df5d4.jpg.html]
2013-10-211839172_zps0e2df5d4.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
 
A couple of days ago I went to see a friends tank which has a Radion Pro over the tank. He is just getting into SPS. This is a simple tank without a sump. Runs a hang on skimmer. I was pretty impressed with the coral colours.

His colours could be better; he is relatively new to SPS, so I am sure the colours will get better. Tank is about 10 months old.

FTS. Due to my camera being so ancient and the LED lighting being harsh, I couldnt quite capture the colours in the FTS shot.
DSC_8503_zps2fce7922.jpg


DSC_8501_zps007bea98.jpg


This one hasnt fully opened up as a couple of the fishes were digging in the sand right next to the coral. Beautiful!
DSC_8496_zpsc6be4ea1.jpg


DSC_8485_zps4ccc87ed.jpg


DSC_8479_zps6528a179.jpg


DSC_8477_zps8d65b29a.jpg


DSC_8473_zpscfd21122.jpg


SPS group shot. Much better colour in person. These have coloured up nicely!
DSC_8469_zps38c6405a.jpg


DSC_8456_zps46941d06.jpg


Two very nice Monti's. The one behind is a lovely light sky blue, but couldnt capture its colour.
DSC_8464_zpscc2b63bc.jpg
 
I didn't see any details about your lights. Lots of LED lights are Cree Cool White + Cree Blue + Cree Royal Blue. This is adequate, but not the best. I'd experiment with something around 430nm (either LED or actinic florescents), or other colors (cyan, green, yellow-orange, red, etc). I wish we knew what spectrum was needed, but I don't think we understand this well yet. Some fixtures are just Royal Blue and Cool White, if that is what you have, then adding some blue (or green or cyan) will go a long way.

Corals don't photograph well. It is common on here for people to accuse others of "photoshopping" their colors to be brighter. I've found the opposite to be true, not that I photoshop my colors duller, but it isn't unusual for blue Acropora to photograph purple or green, etc, and I can't get accurate color without a lot of manipulation. Be careful what you are comparing.

Keep us posted.
 
First, let me say your tank look great!! absolutely! However with the lighting you have try adding in a 4 bulb T5 with ATI Blue Special bulbs. And then start single dosing elements to bring out the colors. Since your fragging this means you have the growth, just in your opinion you want more color. In that case you should understand that the elements Iodine and Halogen promote the pink colors in corals, potassium and boron promote the red color, copper, cobalt, manganese, aluminum, zinc and chrome all promote the green color and these are considered light metals and should not be confused with heavy metals. Also Iodine, potassium support the blues and purple colors.
Feed these elements and maintain a clean tank, meaning be sure to control the feeding schedule and bio load on the system as well as add in additional T5's and watch your colors start popping in color. Good Luck
 
Back
Top