Questions about sps coloration.

[toddmau5]

I've read s bunch of articles on coral coloration. The effects of different nutrients/minerals/elements what have you. Different lighting conditions and what not. I am getting pretty good growth out of everything. All my montis have insane color. My pink stylo is getting more pink. But my millies and acros are all turning green. Literally, everything is green, it's too the point that I can not tell them apart anymore. Rose mille, green. Blue mille, green. Orange mille, green. Graf bonsai, mega green. Red planet, super green. My tri color seems to be the only thing holding its color as far as acros go. I've moved evening up to high light slowly over time to acclimate. All my nutrients are 0 (at least testible levels are 0) after reading about the elements and their effects, my iron is dead zero. Potassium is normal and my iodine is high (0.19ppm according to redsea) I bought the coral colors package and started very slowly dosing the iron and trace elements. Should I be worried about the high iodine levels? Is there anything I can do to keep everything from being green?

 

[mbingha]

Following along

 

[Aquattro]

I'm not sure what a "coral colors package" is, but my first step would be to stop using it and see what happens. The only thing I dose is salt, and my blue milli is blue, red one is red, etc

 

[toddmau5]

It's the red sea coral colors program. 4 bottles, one is iron, one is iodine, one is potassium and the other is a mix of trace elements. My first dose was on Saturday, the acros had all gone super green far before I started dosing anything

 

[Aquattro]

It's the red sea coral colors program. 4 bottles, one is iron, one is iodine, one is potassium and the other is a mix of trace elements. My first dose was on Saturday, the acros had all gone super green far before I started dosing anything

Oh, ok. What lighting are you running?

 

[Aquattro]

Also, salt, source water might give clues. eg, RO vs well, salt not commonly used, etc

 

[toddmau5]

City water. Runs through a 5 stage ro/di unit, 5 stage. Filters are replaced every 60days. New ro membrane replaced in March and flushed. Been using instant ocean salt since day one

 

[Aquattro]

Everything seems extraordinarily normal. Given that, the only time I've seen acros go green was lack of light. although brown would be more common

 

[randybrinkman]

Are you running all led lighting? Everything turning a green tint is not uncommon with led. Increasing blues and running a shorter white light period should help. For example: 3 hrs blue, 4 hrs blue and white, and another three hrs blue.

 

[toddmau5]

Yes 100% led. The blue cycle is longer then the whites, however not quite that extreme. The blues come on at 8am off at 9pm the whites/reds/greens come on at 9am off at 730pm

 

[randybrinkman]

I would try decreasing the intensity and photo period of the whites, and increasing the intensity of the blues. I use all led and had a similar issue with all my sps looking a tint of green.

 

[toddmau5]

The blues are actually turned up pretty high, make the tank pretty ugly. The whites were super low, 10% then everything in the tank browned out really bad so I've been slowly ramping the whites back up very little, my tri color is finally purple again

 

[Aquattro]

I ran LED for a year, with blue @ 100%, whites about 95%. No green in the tank, other than my green milli. Blue only might not be enough light, so I'd ramp up the white and see how they react.

 

[toddmau5]

Yeah I dialed the whites way back because everything was starting to bleach so I dialed the whites way back, then everything browned and I've slowly been ramping them back up

 

[Aquattro]

Sounds maybe like lack of light from dialing it down. Hopefully they'll transition back to the proper colors!

 

[mbingha]

Sounds maybe like lack of light from dialing it down. Hopefully they'll transition back to the proper colors!

I agree. When I was adjusting my LEDs and started to get some paling of colors I turned it down by like 10% and they slowly came back to what they were. Slow changes in either direction when it comes to LEDs. I think that's why they get a bad rap, people adjust too quickly.

 

[Aquattro]

I think that's why they get a bad rap, people adjust too quickly.

To be fair, I set mine up at 50% day one, then thought that was ridiculous and cranked them to 100/95 the second day. Corals were fine But, that was coming off of 3 x 400w MH. LEDs won't over power those.

 

[franklypre]

So you're dosing Iron and wonder why everything is green huh, I'd stop dosing it and see if it helps. I run 10% white and 90% blue with two Reefbreeder values over a 58g, it's a ton of light but coral look great. It did take me a few months to ease it up to 90% blue.

 

[Realposition]

So you're dosing Iron and wonder why everything is green huh, I'd stop dosing it and see if it helps. I run 10% white and 90% blue with two Reefbreeder values over a 58g, it's a ton of light but coral look great. It did take me a few months to ease it up to 90% blue.

It's the red sea coral colors program. 4 bottles, one is iron, one is iodine, one is potassium and the other is a mix of trace elements. My first dose was on Saturday, the acros had all gone super green far before I started dosing anything

 

[toddmau5]

So you're dosing Iron and wonder why everything is green huh, I'd stop dosing it and see if it helps. I run 10% white and 90% blue with two Reefbreeder values over a 58g, it's a ton of light but coral look great. It did take me a few months to ease it up to 90% blue.

everything had turned green, far far before any iron dosing every occurred. tested the iron level before dosing and it was zero, so I started with half the recommended dose, and have only dosed the one time so far.