Pale Corals: What's the problem?

[DaytonaJoe]

I am new to this SPS thing. I designed a tank specifically with SPS in mind, and just about every piece I've added has faded in color over time. From bright neon colors to nearly white. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes only a week. In addition, the growth of most of the coral is extremely slow or nonexistent. I have my suspicions as to what the problem(s) could be, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

My tank:
About 6 months old
33g display, 17g sump
DIY LED lighting, 12CW 12RB leds. The whites are dialed down considerably
-Light is about 6'' from water surface, blue w/ optics white w/o
MP10 ES for flow
Vertex in sump 100 skimmer, gen 2, stock
Eheim 1260 return
reef crystals salt

Livestock:
For the first 6 months or so, just a cleaner shrimp and a lawnmower blenny (and small cleanup crew)
Recently added: small royal gramma and red firefish

Coral:
-have been in tank for more than a few months and are not doing well-
Pink birdsnest
green birdsnest
orange digitata
pink digitata
green pocillopora
superman monti
rainbow monti

-have been in for a while and are growing and have color-
montipora aequituberculata
green candycane
assorted zoanthids/palys

I have four brand new sps frags sitting on the sand bed currently, to test my theory that the light is too intense at the top of the tank.


Test results from today:
ca:400ppm API
hardness:8kh API
magnesium: 1230ppm Salifert
no3:0.02ppm Salifert
salinity:1.025 Refractometer

From the beginning I've attempted to have a low nutrient system - small bioload, feeding only every other day, carbon dosing in the beginning (I stopped this 4 months in as color was declining even then, and I thought it could be the problem). no3 has always been less than 1ppm, and I don't test for phosphates because I've heard hobby grade test kits are useless, and phos is absorbed by algae and rock anyway. There is hardly any algae in my tank, but I've noticed that little specks of green algae are growing on my pink birdsnest Coralline algae seems to be growing well, especially on the rocks.

Regarding the montipora aequituberculata... it was originally placed half way up the rockwork in the tank and began to fade after about a month. I moved it to the sand bed and the color came back strong. It is really the only sps I have that is growing well and all colored up. I am so confused because I was under the impression that LEDs were not particularly intense, and that SPS prefer intense lighting. Is my lighting the problem or could it be something else?

 

[James404]

Your lighting could be too powerful. LED's can have some insane PAR values especially in tanks that are shallow. You may want to try to raise your lights up a little more.

 

[triguy]

Your lighting could be too powerful. LED's can have some insane PAR values especially in tanks that are shallow. You may want to try to raise your lights up a little more.

I'm by no means an expert in this hobby, but I agree with either lights or maybe your system does not have enough nutrients. Maybe try feeding more or dosing AA.

I just switched to 2 120wLED fixtures from 6x54w t5 and I am starting to notice some fading of colors (bleaching) despite acclimating tank. Here are some PAR readings taken from the fixtures I bought.
http://www.sdreefs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71966

 

[therman]

Lights too intense. I've dealt with the exact same things with my diy Cree LED fixtures. Turn the blues down and maybe take the optics off. They are not like dim fluorescent actinics, they have TONS of par. Turn the white/blue ratio to the relative proportion you like and then keep dialing them back maintaining that ratio until your corals are happy. This can mean running blues at less than 50% but at least you're saving that much more in electricity!

I've been working on this in a new Acro tank. I'm down to less than 400mA in some sections of the tank but my blues, like the Hawkins, are looking AMAZING and I'm starting to get good pinks and reds back in strawberry shortcake and red planet frags. Reds definitely seem to be the trickiest with LED setups but I've gotten them going great before under other fixtures. It's just a matter of time until you find that sweet spot in terms of light level/ratio and until the corals acclimate.

Good luck!

 

[Doobze]

The addition of the two fish should help, and I agree with the lighting suggestions. Make sure you acclimate all new frags by starting them at the very bottom for at least a week or two before starting to move them up in small increments a week or so apart.

 

[bobbyboussy]

i dont know much about led's but i would say too much light

 

[vivek]

Looks to me a nutrient issue rather than light. I bake my sps in 500-600 par and they do fine. I cannot believe your led putting that kind of par.

 

[sedor]

I also find it hard to believe that your LEDs are putting out PAR stronger than the sun (which is what corals are receiving naturally in the wild. As long as they are acclimated to it, they should be able to just to almost any lighting situation. I would go with low nutrients. Maybe try feeding the fish more often and see what happens.

 

[BuckeyeTodd]

More nutrients for sure.
Lights possibly, you can lay a layer of screen over the tank and if you see improvement then you know your answer.

I've never had a small tank, is the mp10 enough flow for that tank?

As for the algae on the pink birdsnest, if the algae is on a tip then clip it off. Coral won't grow with it there for whatever reason. I had a ORA green birdsnest thats known for its prodigous growth and it didn't grow at all until I clipped it.

 

[allsps40]

I would add more fish and feed them. Sounds like not enough food for the sps and they are starving. The pale colors and slow growth point to this. LEDs have really proven to grow sps very well and give good colors. The fact that it takes some sps time to pale out makes me think it not light related.

 

[austin93]

I prefer a shotgun approach myself. Shorten the photoperiod a couple hours and increase feedings. Jmo

 

[ddnguyen]

hi

i had the same Problem, i have 24 Crees (rb, cw) over 18g tank +2x24W T5.

I raised them a little too but i dont think thats the issue here, because i have SPS at bottom too and they werent that more colorful then sps at the top.

I started too feed very much to my fish and feed my coral at day and night too, and the colours improving.

Strong light with no nutrients imo make the corals pale, if the corals are starving they lose their ability to protect themselves against too strong lightning

viet

 

[ddnguyen]

uih...... have to correct my statement ----
today i saw i lil piece of a monti digitata lying behind my reef, its getting less light but the color is very beautiful, not even brown, just deep leaf green..... whereas my monti which are in full LED light are very light green tended to yellow....
maybe its both, nutrient and LED bleaching. I just put my led some inches higher...

viet

 

[DaytonaJoe]

Thanks for all the great responses guys! You are confirming what I suspected, and I've taken some corrective action already. Like Austin, I'm more of a shotgun approach kind of guy. I know I should make changes one at a time so I can figure out exactly which one solved the problem, but I want to see an improvement asap. It seems like the issue is a combination of strong light and low nutrients, so I've raised the lights a few inches, removed the optics from the blues, and started feeding every day instead of every other.

If the nutrients are so low that my coral is unhealthy, how could algae be growing on one of my frags? Is it that the flesh is dieing and the algae immediately soaks up the nutrients that are released?

 

[jc-reef]

Looks to me a nutrient issue rather than light. I bake my sps in 500-600 par and they do fine. I cannot believe your led putting that kind of par.

+1...My tank is pretty steril as well and several corals were rich in color when purchased to only fade away to pastel. I figured my tank was missing something. No matter how much I fed, I had bland colors....like they were starving.

After doing some research, I recently started to dose Iodide (potassium Iodine) and also some LIVE Phyto Feast and in the 2 weeks (so far) I am blown away in how deep some of the colors have come back. The most impressive result is that I had an ORA Red Planet frag that I accidently bleached when I dipped it in too strong solution.....it was alive, just completely white in color. It stayed white while slowly encrusting on the plug over 4 months or so and since I started to dose the Iodide and Phyto, the color is really making a comback....:spin3:

 

[adambirk]

if you did not acclimate these corals to you lighting by slowly moving them up till you find were they are happy it is quite possible and probable that you have could have bleaching issues. this would be the corals turning white. i have seen sps get bleached coming from a system using 400watt halides with corals 8 inches under the surface go into a t5 run tank and the owner put the coral the same distance from the surface as in the system he got the corals from and bam bleached the crap out of it.

now pale or pastel colors sound like not enough nutients. you do have a light bioload and not feeding often. but you are measuring some no3 and you said you have some algea growth so i would assume there are some nutients in your system.

i would reduce photo period back and aclimate the whole tank to your new lighting. and add some amino acids( i really like reefbooster. it is amazing stuff) slowly to your system and monitor your corals to see if you see an improvement.

also how stable are your parameters staying? i have seen alk swings really affect the coloring of sps corals. usually it is more to the brown side but i have seen them pale from unstable perameters.

 

[NeverlosT]

Id say either lighting is bleaching you out, or you have low nutrients. A lot of my corals were super pale when the system was younger because there were just no nutrients in the water. You need fish in there to poop and make nutrients and feed the corals!

 

[DaytonaJoe]

Here are some pics for your scrutiny. The first one is an example of the bleaching that's occuring... my poor superman monti.

Second and third are corals that were added a week and a half ago. Their color seems to be sticking, or possibly even improving. But there are other issues. One seems to be losing tissue from the base up. The other may be completely normal, as I have little sps experience, but has a little white flange growing off of only one of the tips. Doesn't look like new growth to me but who knows.

 

[twelvejewelz]

last one looks like stn to me.

 

[DaytonaJoe]

Is there anything I can do about that? I'm starting to research it now