pale corals

[sillygoose]

Something weird is happening to many of my SPS. They look very healthy, good polyp extension, except for their fading color. My params are good. I recently changed my lighting cycle to reflect the current longer days, but this phenom had already started before that. It has been suggested that they may need less light. I can change the intensity of my light (Solaris). Do you think it would be more helpful to shorten the day or reduce the intensity?

 

[Tanque Verde]

Fading colors are sometimes indicative of old bulbs/shifting spectra, but I wouldn't expect that from your LEDS.

Have your temps remained stable (are you confident in your thermometer?)?

I'm not familiar with your strategy of seasonally elongating your light cycle. I would have guessed that many corals, being tropical/equatorial creatures, would not experience significant shifts in sunlight throughout the year, but I don't know that for fact.

 

[oscarslr]

How big was the increase in light cycle

 

[aquaph8]

Have you changed or added anything else?

 

[sillygoose]

I checked between the latitudes of Miami and Hawaii and annual light swings average no more than 3 hours from summer to winter - roughly btw 11 - 14 hours. With our Solaris, we just figured out that we can set longest and shortest day of the year and it will do a solar cycle. We dialed in 13 hours for the longest day - splitting the difference.

This paling out had already started before we changed the light. How can I tell if my LEDs could be weakening (or changing to a different wavelength)? I thought they were good forever-ish.

 

[sillygoose]

I haven't changed food, salt, or anything else that I can think of. We have had remodeling going on and there has been dust. We've tried to hang plastic and vent all fumes.

 

[aquaph8]

We need a par meter in this community. How old are your leds? Aren't they supposed to last like 50k hours?

 

[sillygoose]

We bought it used but I'm guessing it can't be more that 5 years old. That would calculate to about 21,600 hours assuming 5 years at 12 hours/day.

 

[prickles]

An uncommon yet possible problem with SPS losing color and fading out is not enough nutrients. Are you running vodka or somesuch? If so, then you could try adding some of the coral foods from Korallin Zucht.

Also I believe some people get better coral color with relatively short high photoperiods. As an example, with MH's, perhaps only 6-8 hours total on. I run my MH's only 6-7 hours.

 

[sillygoose]

I'm not dosing anything. We use a skimmer and algal turf scrubber to keep NO3/PO4 down. Our water is pretty clean. Because we have no big reason to do water changes for that, we do about 40 g (out of about 110 including the fuge) once a month or so. Maybe I need to add some micro-nutrients a couple times a month...

 

[Tanque Verde]

I'm on a 6 hour MH cycle too (but I don't keep SPS).

Fumes are scary. I've heard bad things about fumes and fish tanks. Regrettably nothing more specific than that.

 

[sillygoose]

The worst was from liquid nails. There's PCE in it but we ventilated like crazy and ran carbon. The smell in the kitchen was horrendous, but it was not too bad in the rest of the house. That was a few weeks ago.

 

[sillygoose]

Oh - something I didn't mention is that my frogspawns are much paler on top than on their undersides. The rest of the LPS are fine. The frogspawn look fine except for color. That's why I was thinking light.

 

[aquaph8]

Were you running more carbon than you would normally. I ran a lot of carbon during the interceptor treatment and it caused the same thing with a couple SPS and my candy canes. Just an option.

 

[sillygoose]

Hmmmm - I usually don't use any carbon.

 

[Tanque Verde]

The frogspawn clue strongly implicates the lighting. My FS regained lost color under softer lighting.

 

[Tucson Reef]

I would guess lihting first, corals will off excess algae in bright light. Did you happen to notice your pH when you covered your reef? I would just watch for now, if polyps are extending and no tissue recedeing you should be OK. Did you change spectrum, blue to white?
I used to change my Solarus from growth to color all the time, that was a cool feature, change spectrum/intensity at a push of a button.

 

[prickles]

Probably light. It could be nutrients because of the turf scrubber. Those are supposed to pull out just about everything if running well. Try modding both.

 

[Bifferwine]

Are you dosing anything?

Remember, water changes are not only for removing bad stuff, but replenishing good stuff that your corals are using up. The salt mix will contain essential elements that your tank needs, and those go down over time. If you are not doing frequent water changes, they could be suffering from a lack of something in the water, especially if you are not dosing to replace what is used up by the corals.

 

[sillygoose]

Thanks everyone. I'll drop the light intensity down and dose with Mg, Sr, etc. once a week for awhile and see what happens.

As far as the Solaris doing growth vs color, I don't know how to do that "with a touch of a button." We have the first model Solaris and no manual. (We were told we were getting the newer improved series...We did get sold a story on that one, but that is a tale for another time perhaps.) If it's there, where would it be in the settings menu?