Issues with coloration

[kenith]

I have read many threads about coloration and I have a couple of q's you guys may be able to help me understand. My sps are growing well and have good PE, but the colors are just not there. I buy frags and mini colonies of things that have great coloration and they fade over time. Now the issue is that I do have enough nutrient from higher bioload (cyano also seen) and the coloration goes from the colorful frag a light "tannish color" with colored tips. The reflective tissues seems to be duller and/or non existent.

Greens are green, but not electric like before

Blues fade except for new tip growth (which are nice blues)

Oranges and reds are dull.

I tried ramping light up, but the tannish coloration just goes lighter, not more colorful. Shouldn't the more light cause the sps to expel some zooxanthellae and bring out the color?

ATI 8x84 ati bulbs- I run 6 bulbs 9 hrs and 2 bulbs 10 hrs (blended together for a 10 hr total lighting period)
TWV- 250 gallons
Alk- 8.5
Cal- 450
Mag- 1350
Big 3 dosed via dosing pump 24x daily
filtration: ATS, Carbon Dosing (vodka and vinegar via dosing pump), and heavy skimming
PO4- 0.01-0.03
NO3- 0 (have always measured 0)

Could the lack of NO3 cause the coloration to fade? TIA for the help!

 

[sahin]

Reduce full lighting hours to 6 hours or less. Stop the carbon dosing. With an ATS, heavy skimming and carbon dosing, combined with T5 lighting you are starving your corals and giving them too much light.

Light hours can be reduced right away. But take the time with reducing the carbon dosing. Make sure you carry out 15% water changes every week. Do that for 6 weeks and you will see improvement.

I've been there myself. Now I run a simple system. Liverock and skimmer for filtration. Dosing of Ca, Alk and Mg, and nothing else. May use GAC and GFO if needed. Colours are getting better. New frags dont lose colour or lighten up. I am using T5/LED.

Hope that helps.

 

[Gumma 1]

Agree with Sahin,less full spectrum lighting and slowly reduce carbon dosing.I would also feed some Rods foods,a lot of good stuff for Corals and fish in there.

 

[kenith]

I always understood that brown is either not enough light or too much nutrients in the water. I'm just trying to understand-

I slowly stopped carbon dosing when I moved over to an ats, but that led to poor water quality and browning of corals. With carbon dosing, the glass is cleaner, the rocks are cleaner, and pe is better. I don't feel they are starving... They feed just fine off of fish poo correct?

 

[JAustin]

Fish poo, yes, but you may not have enough of it and or your removing it too quickly. What's your fish load?

I've been there with your symptoms. I would pick up some roti feast and oyster feast and feed at night for a month. If that doesn't fix you up move on to something else.

What ever you chose to do, don't make any sudden chemistry changes.

 

[kenith]

Fish poo, yes, but you may not have enough of it and or your removing it too quickly. What's your fish load?

I've been there with your symptoms. I would pick up some roti feast and oyster feast and feed at night for a month. If that doesn't fix you up move on to something else.

What ever you chose to do, don't make any sudden chemistry changes.

I will be keeping parameters the same as far as alk, ca, and mag.

My bioload is high as I'm keeping roughly 15 fishes and they get fed well with a variation of black worms, spectrum and omega pellets, rods food, mysis, reef caviar, and a few more. I use different ones on different days and skip a day or two here and there. Amongst those fishes are two large blue jaws, a 6" hippo, 5" purple tang.... all whom devour anything that lands in the tank.

I'm finally getting over the cyano issue (which was really bad), which led me to use the 3 types of filtration along with tons of live rock.

I am a bit scared with feeding roti feast and oyster feast for the fear of the cyano issue returning.

I've recently been dosing amino acids for about a week every other day with no improvements yet.

With your symptoms you had previously, did feeding more and less light give you brighter colors and rid the brown/light brown? Do you still suggest reducing lighting schedule (seems like when I did this before, most sps get darker, but not more colorful).

 

[rburns24]

I wonder if you cut back on your amino acid, if it might help. One of the signs of overdosing aminos, is coral browning out. Not saying this is the cause for sure or anything like that, but it might be worth a try. Good luck in finding out what's causing the browning out.

Robert.

 

[HV1990]

Kenith have you thought about just going back to basics and starting from there? I know that all the dosing and other filtration will need to be cut back slowly but I believe going to basics and ramping up from there may be the way to go.

 

[Big E]

How old are your ATI bulbs & what ballast are you running? What types of bulbs?

 

[kenith]

Kenith have you thought about just going back to basics and starting from there? I know that all the dosing and other filtration will need to be cut back slowly but I believe going to basics and ramping up from there may be the way to go.

Yes- I will be going fallow for 13 weeks at which I will get to run reduced filtration. I will be shutting the ats and back off carbon dosing slowly. At that point- I will rely on just water changes.

 

[kenith]

I wonder if you cut back on your amino acid, if it might help. One of the signs of overdosing aminos, is coral browning out. Not saying this is the cause for sure or anything like that, but it might be worth a try. Good luck in finding out what's causing the browning out.

Robert.

The amino dosing was only for about a week or so. I've had this issue for some time now.

What makes me question my tank is that I get some brown, I run ramp up the lights and the brown goes lighter. Shouldn't the expulsion of zoox bring the true coloration back into the coral? Not all coral do this, but the colors are definitely not like some tanks I've seen.

 

[NaH2Ofreak]

What t5 bulbs are you running? More blue spectrum may bring out more of the colors you are looking for.

The cyano is most likely from the carbon dosing. Once it is gone and you are no longer dosing vodka, the cyano will most likely not return. It would be more likely to see other nuisance algae in it's place if anything.

Dennis

 

[jcw]

I'm in the same boat.

I thought it might be redbugs and dosed interceptor. Pe is better, but color still brown and dull. Purples are great but the reds and greens are dull and brown.

Best acro is the purple nana. The purple tips are electric.

Worst acros are speciosas, red planet, my red dragon is orange/brown.


I tried like you to increase light (6 bulb t5 with 3 ai sols over a 125).
I tried running more carbon/gfo.

Colors just got lighter, but not better.


My parameters are similar to yours.
How do you measure phos? I get less than .03 on salifert every time but i'm told it's not accurate at that low level. Nitrates have also been zero on api test for a long time.

I'm thinking about going bare bottom and attack the detritus. I reread copps tank of the month article and he says he is a stickler for a detritus free system. Get the organics out of the system asap before they cause problems.