Rainbow Monti Not Colourful

[teddscau]

Okay, so I bought this frag from the New Jersey aquarium show (was it in October? November?). Anyways, it looked great at the show. It was red, yellow, orange, green, blue... But when I put it in quarantine, it turned a rusty red colour, and it won't colour back up, not even in our display tank. I have other monti in my display tank, and they're more colourful than this frag is.

Whenever I get new frags, they look amazing in the store, but as soon as they're packed up in their plastic transport bags their colour starts fading. By the time I put them in quarantine their colours are a lot more dull than at the store. I always thought that if I just gave them time to settle in and colour back up, they'd look great again. But even after three months they're nowhere near as good looking as they were when I first picked them up to bring them home. This is even true for corals that like low flow and low light, so it can't be brushed off as my setup having sucky lighting or whatever. The only ones that stay just as colourful as their WYSIWYG photos are my NPS corals. Even the mushrooms I buy are less colourful in my tank.

Any thoughts? I forget what the water chemistry is, but I've posted the pH and all that in the past and everyone said it looked fine.

 

[4ddiction]

Sounds like a light and water issue.

 

[Jaris]

Probably too much nutrients in the tank.

 

[teddscau]

Now that you mention it, it must be the lighting. Just checked the specs on our lights and the PAR is WAY too low. It's a pain in the butt trying to locate new lights for the tank >_>. As for nutrients, I don't think that's the problem. My dad does a weekly water change, there isn't any algae in our tank (just a ton of macro), and we always get a reading of zero for both nitrates and phosphates.