Problems keeping corals blue

[nait002]

First off I'd like to say I really only want people with this similar experience to post. I'd like facts and not guesses. I have a 120 gallon, predominantly sps. I have all colors of sps. They range from acropora, millipora, montipora....ect. I have no problem keeping the colors on the greens, oranges , pinks or reds. My problem is keeping the blue colors. I have 4 corals that were all blue colonies when I bought them. They were also aqua cultured. I have different pieces of the same colony placed in different spots in the tank. The same thing always seems to happen the coral turns brownish green and the tips always grow out blue then change the same color as the base. I get excellent growth throughout the tank. Any help on getting these corals back to blue would be great. Now for the stats....................

120 main tank, 100 gal sump, 30 gal frag tank all on 1 system. Flow is achieved with 2 seio 2600's, 2 seio 1100's and about 350 gallons of return for a total of @7800 GPH. Lighting is 2-250 watt Phoenix 14k de bulbs in PFO mini pendants run off a PFO HQI ballast. Halides are run for 8 hours a day. Dusk/Dawn is achieved through 2-28 watt 460nm T-5's and 1-28 watt 420nm T-5. The skimmer is a modded ASM g3. I also run carbon and Kent Powerphos. Calcium comes from a Geo 612 with ARM media.There is also a large ball of cheato. 35 gallon water changes are done every 3 weeks with Reef Crystals salt. I also dose Kent essential elements, coral vite and strontium every Saturday.

I feed a homemade mixture of food daily that includes mysid, blood worms, brine shrimp, and rods reef mixture. All food is rinsed in RO/DI water then supplemented with Kent Zoe vitamins and garlic.
The tang also gets a strip of nori daily.

Bioload of fish is 1 large yellow tang, 1 small niger trigger, 1 dart fish, 1 royal gramma, 1 blue chromis and 1 blue mandarin. There are also around 40 different SPS corals and a couple lps.

My parameter are as follows.............
Salinity .35 ppm
Calcium 450 ppm
Alk 3.5meql or 0.8 DKH
Magnesium 1380
Phosphates .02
Nitrates 1.84
Ammonia and nitrates are 0
All test are done are the local college

 

[boxfishpooalot]

I feed a homemade mixture of food daily that includes mysid, blood worms, brine shrimp, and rods reef mixture. All food is rinsed in RO/DI water then supplemented with Kent Zoe vitamins and garlic.
The tang also gets a strip of nori daily.

Sounds like a ton of food. Tons of food equals tons of nutrients like Po4 and No3, which inhibits calcification.Inhibited calcification means the tissue has no room to grow without a skeleton, so it inhibits light. Darker colors is a sighn that the coral is getting enough nutrients and therfore prevents the added effect of UV and IR radiation and decreases its abosorbtion of light by getting darker, much like a taned person inhibiting the effect of solar radiation. Doing so lowers the growth rate allowing tissue to keep up with slow calcification rates. A coral can only grow so fast. Lower your nutrients and feed less will lighten their color allowing the coral to maintain equilibrium between calcification and tissue growth..

 

[bbillyc]

Agreed, the P04 and nitrates are your problem. If you feed that much you have to skim more, and possibly add a sulphur denitrator along with a media reactor with phosban or similar phosphate removal system. It is the nitrates and phosphates causing the problems of coloration and calcification. One problem I have found with the blues is that they lose the color fast and even when water is back to pristeen they take a long time to recover. I read somewhere that it takes 48 hours to lose the color and 48 weeks to get it back.

 

[twon8]

i would stop with the:
dose Kent essential elements, coral vite and strontium every Saturday.

no need for them imo

 

[nait002]

I should of clarified my feeding a little better. All the food is mixed up in a small container weekly which stays in the refrigerator. I feed about 3-4 ml of food out of a pipette daily.

"Agreed, the P04 and nitrates are your problem."
My phosphates are .02 and they stay between .02 and .01. The Kent powerphos is in a 2 little fishes media reactor. I do agree with how long a coral takes to color back up. How much lower should my nitrates be? Right now they are at 1.84 on a lab test.

"i would stop with the:
dose Kent essential elements, coral vite and strontium every Saturday."
I thought the reason for dosing these supplements was to replace elements that the carbon takes out of the water.
Do any of you guys ad supplements to your tanks?

 

[JB NY]

Reduce your nutrients and the blue colors will come back.

 

[DrBDC]

I'll throw in that it also depends on the coral origination. I get some awesome corals from a local farmer that grows using only actinic whites and actinic blues. They end up looking almost fake and overly colorful. When I get them and put them in my tank, they slowly turn a nondescript color. Not really brown, but that color corals get when you take look at them in a bag outside as you're heading home from a frag swap/LFS. Just no color. Then over a period of about 6-9 months they slowly go from colorful, to non colored, then back to great color again. It's a slow wait and discouraging sometimes but in the end they go back to the original color I picked out.

 

[nait002]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9287282#post9287282 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JB NY
Reduce your nutrients and the blue colors will come back.

What are your nutrients at for comparison?

 

[twon8]

i add kalk, alkalinity in the form of baking soda, calcium chloride and magnesium. that is all i add besides food.
your nutrients are pretty low, i wouldn't think that woudl be the problem.

 

[DrBDC]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9287667#post9287667 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by twon8
i add kalk, alkalinity in the form of baking soda, calcium chloride and magnesium. that is all i add besides food.
your nutrients are pretty low, i wouldn't think that woudl be the problem.

Same here. Just a lot of kalk and an occ. Randy's homemade 2 part adjustment.

I've played around with aspartic acid. That raised my nitrate levels.

I've played with potassium. Didn't show a diff. on the cheapo potassium tests they sell. Never saw a difference with either on corals or anything at all.

I do occationally give a little iron for the cheato. That I do notice a change if it seems the cheato is slowing down or getting a little less green it gives it a little boost.

 

[twon8]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9289236#post9289236 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DrBDC
Same here. Just a lot of kalk and an occ. Randy's homemade 2 part adjustment.

I've played around with aspartic acid. That raised my nitrate levels.

I've played with potassium. Didn't show a diff. on the cheapo potassium tests they sell. Never saw a difference with either on corals or anything at all.

I do occationally give a little iron for the cheato. That I do notice a change if it seems the cheato is slowing down or getting a little less green it gives it a little boost.

i do the same, probably every three months or so i'll squirt some iron into the sump

 

[MiddletonMark]

How's the color on the rest of your corals?

What's the source of these corals? Wild colonies, mariculture, ???

 

[Serioussnaps]

lighting?

 

[nait002]

I have caps that keep there brilliant orange color and birdsnests that are super pink. Green corals keep there greens. Like I said it's the blues and purples. Most of the corals started as frags out of others tanks. There are also a few wild colonies and a few cultured colonies. I did a lot of reading today and a few key articles by Eric Borneman about the need to feed corals. I have read these boards for a year now and have not specifically fed corals. I don't want this to bring up another subject. I also know there are many people that feed their corals fish poop only. I am going to start feeding the corals tonight and I am also going to document this process with pics and documentation. I will also post a pic of my tank as of today and I will repost in this thread at a later date with my conclusions. I would also like anyone else to give their 2 pennies worth if they have had the same problems as me.

 

[smatter]

Dude your avatar coupled with your quote is the problem. Wash your hands before you put them in your tank in the morning to get rid of the brown.

 

[DrBDC]

Give a good variety of foods. I sometimes feed some golden pearls, cyclopeeze, and even some shrimp roe I got from an Asian grocery. I don't do that very often, maybe 1x every week or two. I personally have found better blues under xm10k's than I did with a 15K Iwasaki although the Iwasaki was only 175 w vs. my 10's that are 400w. A few times over the years I've made the homemade foods that I freeze in sandwich bags but that was with more softies rather than sps. Since going almost all sps I haven't done it. I personally have a problem with yellow and red pocillapora's under any lights. Nothing else.

 

[DrBDC]

I didn't read that quote. I think I'll go hurl now.

 

[Kolognekoral]

Although you are reading low nitrates and PO4, they could still be a slight problem, but I think you main problem lies with the trace elements. With your water changes you are supplying ample trace elements. Additional ones will simply darken the corals. Stop them for a few weeks and see what happens.

Also, I would run the halides for 10 hours. The tropical day is 12 hours and the sun does not rise slowly, it shoots out of the water in about 1 minute!

I had a similar situation and have found a way out with carbon filtration plus Elos M filter medium, which is a modified zeolith type. I believe my problem was more a build-up of certain non-testable components in the water that the carbon and M removed. The browning effect is being reduced and the lightening started about 3 days after the new filter medium. Now two weeks into it, the blues on the tiped corals are brighter and the base beige is paling. One thing that I noticed is that my neon green Acro is paling to a lime-yellow, which is pretty, but certainly also part of the change in water chemistry.

I do feed my corals with a fine powder (Timo Food 1) mixed with a few drops of amino acids and water. They are fed after the lights are out and the tentacles are fully extended. Ther are quite a few fish, as well.

I am of the growing opinion that there are elements/compounds/molecules in the water that we are unable to test for or are even aware of, that effect coral growth, colouring, etc., but may be removed through carbon and /or Zeolith. Now, as to these mystery components actually being dangerous for the corals is another issue. We seem to be more worried about the aesthetics

 

[nait002]

Here are some pics of corals I have that I know are supposed to be blue......

 

[nait002]

Here are some pics of other corals in the tank............