Pale brown corals!!!

degibson84

degibson84

New member
My sps seem to be getting more and more pale/brown. They are all encrusting and branching very well. I'm just wondering what I should do. Currently running GFO and carbon in a reactor with a gravity fed algae scrubber.

Tank Params
Cal 440(API)
Alk 8.6 dkh(salifert)
Po4 0.00(Hanna checker)
Nitrate 0.00(API)

Should I add acro power or remove the GFO? Or heck even both?
 
I run an extremely low nutrient system. All my corals were very pale. I finally added a supplement similar to acropower and they colored up in a matter of days. Some say just feed the tank more. I feel like dosing gives me more control rather than relying on the decomposition of food and fish poop. Lol
 
Is the ATS the only form of nutrient export you are running?
FWIW I couldn't get good colors to show with one, ran one for about 18 months.
 
Oh, I struggled with this for a solid year with my system. Sounds like the classic case of stripping your system too clean. I ran BB, used GFO/Carbon and fed my fish sparingly. As soon as I ditched the GFO and started feeding my fish twice a day (and actually added several more fish), my SPS all darkened and started to grow like weeds. I've been playing with light intensity and longer photo period and my colors are really starting to pop! My nitrates are around 5 ppm and PO4 has gotten as high as 0.10, but the sweet spot seems to be around 0.05-0.07 for me.

When I first started SPS corals I had this notion that the water had to be pristine and super clean with 0's across the board. Well I did that for a year and my corals looked really bad. Try feeding more, take it slow and see how that goes.
 
echopiece said:
Oh, I struggled with this for a solid year with my system. Sounds like the classic case of stripping your system too clean. I ran BB, used GFO/Carbon and fed my fish sparingly. As soon as I ditched the GFO and started feeding my fish twice a day (and actually added several more fish), my SPS all darkened and started to grow like weeds. I've been playing with light intensity and longer photo period and my colors are really starting to pop! My nitrates are around 5 ppm and PO4 has gotten as high as 0.10, but the sweet spot seems to be around 0.05-0.07 for me.



When I first started SPS corals I had this notion that the water had to be pristine and super clean with 0's across the board. Well I did that for a year and my corals looked really bad. Try feeding more, take it slow and see how that goes.
Click to expand...


+ 1 billion! Lol
 
Yeah I haven't been in the hobby but for a couple years, but I think the pristine water idea is taken too far. Had merit originally because new tanks suffer from incredibly high nitrates and people liked to overstock tanks, so having nitrates and phosphates way out of range is easy to do. Lately there are so many aggressive nutrient export options it's just as easy to take it too far the other direction. I ran biopellets gfo and carbon all at once, with a light bioload. Corals grew ok but were pale and bleached easily. Removed gfo and run biopellets at half strength now and see a world of difference already.
 
Water to clean. You need some kind of food for corals. Everyone is trying to get to 0 but thats not what corals need. I have my NO3 at 6 and PO4 at .03 colors are great...growing sps and zoas in same tank.
 
MrReef101 said:
Water to clean. You need some kind of food for corals. Everyone is trying to get to 0 but thats not what corals need. I have my NO3 at 6 and PO4 at .03 colors are great...growing sps and zoas in same tank.
Click to expand...

I don't think my true numbers are zero though. I have GHA growing only on my wp40 and wp25. If I had both no3 and po4 at 0 that wouldn't be possible.
 
I'm going to vote feed the fish more and back off gfo. I have a friend that runs his tanks with near zero no3 and po4 and all his sps grows great but is brown. When he gives me frags it takes about 2 weeks and they change into some crazy colors sometimes. My po4 is like 1.0.
 
I guess I will start slow and remove the GFO to start. I don't have many fish so I have never fed heavy. In a 220 I have a small pair of clowns,a medium tomini, brackish green spot puffer, 2 black and gold chromis and a firefish. All fish a fairly small other than the tomini.
 
"Quoted from Big E"

It's not about the numbers as much as the through put of food.

Best example I can give--

100g tank with 3 fish, PO4-0--- Coral look starved and washed out

100g tank with 10 fish, PO4-0--- Corals are vibrant and colorful

The read outs you get on test kits is what's left over after the corals, bacteria, algae, ect. get their share.

Every tank is going to have a different balance point.........that's why it's more important to test when everything looks great.
 
That is who I bought my first pack of sps from. Seeing the colors of the colonies my peices came from has made me more proactive. My colors are blah compared to his
 
What foods do you guys feed your corals? I have always randomly spot feed my lps but never spot fed sps due to the small polyp size
 
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