low coloration

[20 gallon]

Wondering if someone would be able to tell me causes of this?

 

[markalot]

Based on the looks of the rock and sand I would say new tank with very clean water. They are alive, just pale. Add more fish or feed just a little coral food daily and make sue your exports are good and I think things will slowly color up. Just a little pinch of Reef Roids or similar might be enough. Te bird has good polyp extension, though the picture is small, and overall they really don't look too bad.

 

[20 gallon]

Any idea why the tips are hot pink and nothing else is?

 

[jurgenph]

is there still coral tissue on the white parts? the pictures are too small to see.


J.

 

[reefmutt]

It's hard for me to see the pics on my phone but I agree with Mark, they look starved.

 

[20 gallon]

along with the low nutrient hypothesis, ive got a reef octopus protien skimmer rated to 90 gallons and run gfo/carbon in a brs reactor off of my canister filter. i have no filter pads in my canister, just 2qt of MarinePure Ceramic Biomedia.

 

[kevin_e]

along with the low nutrient hypothesis, ive got a reef octopus protien skimmer rated to 90 gallons and run gfo/carbon in a brs reactor off of my canister filter. i have no filter pads in my canister, just 2qt of MarinePure Ceramic Biomedia.

Yep, definately starved.

 

[20 gallon]

suggestions on unstarving without bringing any algae into the equation? maybe take the protein skimmer offline for a while and only turning it on after feedings? Another interesting point thing i noticed is that polyps completely retract at night.

 

[Hentz]

Don't turn anything off. Dose some Amino Acids. I run ZEOvit, which its goal is to run an ultra low nutrient system. My corals were great until they started fading out. Within a month most went pretty pale and blah looking. So I picked up some ME Amino Acids and within a week my corals were blooming again

 

[20 gallon]

Ive heard a lot of people are skeptical about amino acids, how certain are you that you can attribute your coral re-coloration to the addition?

 

[nmotz]

Ive heard a lot of people are skeptical about amino acids, how certain are you that you can attribute your coral re-coloration to the addition?

I think at this point, supplementing your tank with anything is going to help. I'm also skeptical about amino acids, but I also cant disagree with the "anything with a mouth needs to feed" logic. In tanks that are nutrient sparse, I think supplementing with amino acids and other coral foods is a lot more important than with well stocked/nutrient dense tanks. It's just that most people load their tanks with fish in addition to coral, and fish poo is great coral food.

I don't have any fish in my tank, so I supplement with KZ coral vitalizer and Selcon. Honestly, it's tough to say if either of them is really that helpful, but I have full PE on all my corals so that's a plus. IMHO, proper lighting is always going to be a bigger deal for SPS than supplemental feeding.

 

[Hentz]

I'm with you on that. That's why I never buy amino acids. I've dosed before and saw nothing.

However, my friend said his acros were pale because of low nutrients. He dosed ME Amino Acids and it colored things back up. Skeptical, I bought a bottle with high doubts and am surprised to see the results. I even cut the dose in half just three weeks ago to 2ml a day. My rainbow Milli had small polyps while I dosed only 2ml. I lost some color in my tort. I dosed it back up to 4ml a day and within a week (end of last week) everything is back to normal. Not saying it's a holy grail and a magical formula. But I'm convinced it absolutely helps!