Purple Death Palythoa question

[mushroomss]

Ive noticed some of my purple death polyps getting a few brown spots.I feed them every 2-3 days and their spreading like crazy.They are currently on the sandbed of my 12 gallon nano cube.Any ideas?

 

[rogersb]

I've never tried to feed mine so I have no info there, but I keep them lower and they keep great purple. Since your is on the sandbed, try getting them a little shade. I have heard that higher light and they tend to brown out. I'm not sure your lighting, but being 12g, it's probably a low tank so try moving them into a little cave or off to the side where they don't get as much light.

 

[SoFloReefer]

What do you feed them? What lighting do you have?

 

[impur]

I don't feed mine either, but they require high light to get the awesome purple color for me. I run a 250w 20k radium

 

[mushroomss]

its just 24 watts of pc lighting.And i feed them formula one marine pellets or mysid shrimp.

 

[SoFloReefer]

My guess would be the lighting. Protopalys require a lot of light from what I understand. Those small cubes are easy and fairly cheap to upgrade to LEDs. My Palys and Zoas are responding very well to LED lighting. BTW, how do you spot feed?

 

[klrreef]

Ive heard that they will get brown if they are in anyway shaded. In higher light they are suppose to get bright purple.

 

[408Reefer]

I have had mine for 3 years and had the same problems. Under power compacts in my biocube and red sea max they were brown regardless of position and light being received. Now I have them under 6 HO t5 bulbs and they are bright purple both up top near the light and in a shaded spot.

 

[mushroomss]

Well i will move them up closer to the light.I use a turkey baster and turn off the pump.So im not blasting food into the water column

 

[organism]

It could be that feeding them is increasing the nutrients in your water, which in turn can make the zooxanthellae algae in them grow and brown them out. Why feed them at all? They do fine without it, mine grow like crazy and have never been fed...

 

[Friday Night]

I have never seen a zoa "feed eat" before. I would shade the PD.

 

[Jacwil]

You have never seen a Zoanthid capture food and close up??

There are so many differing experiences with PD's and lighting. How can he know where to place them after this? lol

 

[iheartJMS]

I shade mine as well and they are a nice purple. In light mine brown out

 

[MA4446]

I had the same question a couple weeks ago and giving them a little shade or indirect lighting helped the color come back. Having good actinic or blue lighting helps see the purple too...

 

[jvo87]

I've had both high light and low light and they all seem to prefer high light if u want the nice deep purple on them

 

[mushroomss]

Well i for one know its not increasing the nutrients in the water.They are spot fed and no waste goes into the water column.I have had fantastic results in spot feeding other corals and they have never browned out....Im assuming it has something to do with my lighting

 

[MrHarvard]

Deff. the lighting with those particular pallys. How old are your bulbs?

 

[organism]

Well i for one know its not increasing the nutrients in the water.They are spot fed and no waste goes into the water column.I have had fantastic results in spot feeding other corals and they have never browned out....Im assuming it has something to do with my lighting

When you're spot fed no matter how clean your plate is a ton of waste goes into the water column. Everything poops, and the more you feed it the more it poops, which is why much of the time it's a waste to feed already fast growing corals.

It might be your lighting, it might be higher nutrients from feeding, and it could very likely be a combination of the two.

 

[mushroomss]

I only spot feed the pd's in this tank.And the bulbs are new maybe a month old.Guess i wont feed them for awhile and see if that helps at all.

 

[caudill187]

They will stay and appear more purple under higher Kelvin, more blue light. Feeding affects growth rate more than color.