New acros changing color

[bfortune76]

I got these frags a few weeks ago. I dont know much about the acros except that they like high light. I started them on the bottom and have been working them up since I run LED's and they came from a system that was using T5's. So far so good. But I have a question about the green color on the large frag. It was actually kind of a cool mixed green and purple. Since adding them to my system they have started turning a deep purple. The white areas and the green pigmentation have also started turning purple. Was the green pigment not a normal coloring for this type of coral? Am I giving it to much or to little light to cause it to turn full purple?

 

[dkeller_nc]

That's sort of the nature of the beast with acros. It's pretty common for them to shift coloration, even radically, when moving between different light intensities and/or spectrum. That's one reason why you see some frag sellers note which light source the mother colonies were grown under (LED, T5HO, Metal Halide, etc..) - Battle Corals is one such seller.

 

[GorillaReefer]

What he ^ said. I’ve noticed that colors will come back after a few months if all parameters stay consistent, under your own lighting. Long as that’s the real color the coral is supppsed to be, and not some unusual morph the mother colony turned.

 

[dkeller_nc]

By the way - that's one reason a fair number of SPS keepers run what at first may seem like primitive lights from the 1990's - T5HO. Lately, a fair number of experienced SPS reefer's video's with equipment descriptions reveal that they've incorporated both technologies (LED and T5HO).

I haven't tried it myself yet (I run tanks with LEDs-only, and tanks with high output fluorescents only), but I note that now both Aquatic Life and Geisemann have T5HO "retrofit" fixtures that are designed for you to add your existing LEDs into their fixture that have T5HO slots.