SPS Corals Missing Color

[dtum]

Some of my SPS corals are clearly missing color, particularly blue and purple. My greens are superb, reds are pretty good, but no luck with the other colors. They were doing just great when I added them to the tank, but would lose their bright pigments over the course of a few days. They appear to be alive and some feature really long polyp extensions.

Here's the tank:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dtumanov/10076769423/" title="DSC02578 by Dmitry Tumanov, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3787/10076769423_a74eb21d0f_b.jpg" width="1024" height="680" alt="DSC02578"></a>

This 48x24x20 tank is almost a year old, I perform a 10% water change every week with Tropic Marin Pro salt. Never had any detectible nitrates, my phosphates are 0.02-0.05. I use Prodi Bio suite of additives. Tank is lit by two Radion Pros running at 45% brightness.

78.5 Temperature
7.89 pH
441 ORP
1.0256 Salinity
7.33 Alkalinity
0.05 Phosphate
450 Calcium
1380 Magnesium
0 Nitrate

And that's what my corals look like:

DSC02582


DSC02584


DSC02581


DSC02583

How do I make those corals sing and dance?

 

[k_red_raider]

Your tank looks awesome.

Im no expert so im gona just throw out a question...does your lights have that color specturm in it? Im not familiar with that light so dont take that question wrong. Maybe someone who is more of an expert and lighting guru will chime in.

Great looking tank tho!!

 

[Reefer1225]

Did you try turning up the Radions? Blues and purples typically like high light in my experience...

 

[dtum]

Did you try turning up the Radions? Blues and purples typically like high light in my experience...

Thanks, I've been running them at 50%, so I'll turn them up slightly to 60% for this month to see if it makes a difference.

I did notice that my softies did not like bright light - frog spawn in particular go all washed out. And all favias would simply die off.

 

[dtum]

Your tank looks awesome.

Im no expert so im gona just throw out a question...does your lights have that color specturm in it? Im not familiar with that light so dont take that question wrong. Maybe someone who is more of an expert and lighting guru will chime in.

Great looking tank tho!!

Thank you, yes, there's full color spectrum in them.

 

[zombiereefer]

some things look great and some are lacking that color. im actaully dealing with the same issue. i have the 16k razor. i started backing off the strength. im down to 65% for just a short time. my lps and and zoas are loving live. my green sps are rocking and bluw and pruples are loosing color. they came from tanks using the same light. idk what to do. im following allong i hope we get answers. i too have good water parameters like u. also ur ph is a little low but i doubt thats the problem.

 

[trueblackpercula]

I was having the same problem, I then started dosing lugos solution once a week 5 drops in my 120 all Sps tank. Bam colors in my blues cam back very quickly and now they are fine. This worked for me and just wanted to share my findings. I suspect lower levels of potassium iodide, and iodine heavily affect the blue color Sps. Some reefer around here don't think it's needed to add to the tank but I disagree as my Sps are living proff that it works. If you do add it to the tank add to a very high flow area like your sump and start off very slow as it can cause algea to grow supper fast. In addition to that my magnisium was around 1240 and I raised it to 1420 and between that and the potassium iodide, and iodine my blues are back.
Good luck and hope this helps as your tank is stunning.
Michael

 

[dtum]

I was having the same problem, I then started dosing lugos solution once a week 5 drops in my 120 all Sps tank. Bam colors in my blues cam back very quickly and now they are fine. This worked for me and just wanted to share my findings. I suspect lower levels of potassium iodide, and iodine heavily affect the blue color Sps. Some reefer around here don't think it's needed to add to the tank but I disagree as my Sps are living proff that it works. If you do add it to the tank add to a very high flow area like your sump and start off very slow as it can cause algea to grow supper fast. In addition to that my magnisium was around 1240 and I raised it to 1420 and between that and the potassium iodide, and iodine my blues are back.
Good luck and hope this helps as your tank is stunning.
Michael

Thanks, as part of my ProdiBio dosing, I'm dosing 2 vials of Iodine by ProdiBio every 2 weeks.

 

[rovster]

Your tank is gorgeous! From the looks of it, seems something is lacking. Don't get me wrong, everything looks great, but corals look like they are deficient in something. I would try either feeding more, or slowly trying out some supplements and see if you notice a difference. Maybe even look to some of the zeo additives. You don't have to run full zeo to use them. Good luck!

 

[jda]

This is going to come off like a doooochebag, but I think that your tank looks amazing with those lights. I would not jack around with it too much since I think that you are probably maxed out with color and you might do more harm than good. Perhaps you can get tbd320's opinion - he kinda has the same issues IIRC and might be able to provide more specific help.

What is the margin for error with your Phosphate test kit? .05 is a tad high, but probably OK within the test kit range. The only thing that I might suggest is that if .05 is accurate that you get it down a bit.

 

[MHG]

I found that a slightly higher nitrate brings out those colors...

 

[tdb320reef]

.

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Routine form your build thread.

Looks like you have a lot going on dosing wise and I am not familiar with the products. Are you running Activated Carbon? If so in a reactor or passive? The Carbon dosing may be starving your tank and the look kind of hungry. Keep in mind that the light may be more intense vs your old lights and the corals may be metabolizing much faster where they might come up empty handed nutritionally. Judging on your pictures from May you appear to be getting growth.

You are at 60% light wise which doesn't say much. I would look to maximize the blue channel and minimize the whites to 10-20% from a light standpoint but I think your main problem is coral nutrition.

Edit: One other thing which makes life easier on corals metabolizing is a PH at say 8.3. You are running low alk because of the carbon dosing I get it but you might have better success and maintaining an higher PH at say ALK 8.3 which would effectively bring your ORP down to 400-350.

 

[dtum]

Your tank is gorgeous! From the looks of it, seems something is lacking. Don't get me wrong, everything looks great, but corals look like they are deficient in something. I would try either feeding more, or slowly trying out some supplements and see if you notice a difference. Maybe even look to some of the zeo additives. You don't have to run full zeo to use them. Good luck!

Thanks, I have tried to increase the feeding in the past few weeks as well as started to supplement with a few drops of the standard zeo line (pohl's xtra, sponge power, amino acids). Did not see much of a change.

 

[MHG]

took 7 months to a year for my stuff to color back up after having low nutrients for too long. Xtra works well on some corals...but more feeding over months paid off for me

 

[shaggss]

Routine form your build thread.

Looks like you have a lot going on dosing wise and I am not familiar with the products. Are you running Activated Carbon? If so in a reactor or passive? The Carbon dosing may be starving your tank and the look kind of hungry. Keep in mind that the light may be more intense vs your old lights and the corals may be metabolizing much faster where they might come up empty handed nutritionally. Judging on your pictures from May you appear to be getting growth.

You are at 60% light wise which doesn't say much. I would look to maximize the blue channel and minimize the whites to 10-20% from a light standpoint but I think your main problem is coral nutrition.

Edit: One other thing which makes life easier on corals metabolizing is a PH at say 8.3. You are running low alk because of the carbon dosing I get it but you might have better success and maintaining an higher PH at say ALK 8.3 which would effectively bring your ORP down to 400-350.

+1.

Also with zero nitrates your corals could be hungry. Increase the feedings and keep some detectable NO3 (2-3). Worked for me.

 

[Randy15]

I also stopped carbon dosing and added quality GFO slowly with a more thorough maintenance routine. My colors have returned but I am battling a little bit of cyno now. I find the cyno is a better trade off since I can cure it with detritus removal and microbacor. Just my experience.

 

[Alex T.]

Like others have said, great colors seem to come with detectable nitrates and "manageable" phosphates. I neglected my tank a little through the summer and about a month and a half ago started getting it back into shape. When I tested the water I found that nitrates were undetectable and phosphate was .05 on my Hannah Checker. I had a little algae on the rocks but nothing too bad at all. I manually removed what I could, did a 100% sump water change where I vacuumed all detritus from the sump and scraped it clean. While it may seem counterintuitive to feed more when you have a higher than desirable phosphate reading, I've found that if I change the GFO more often (instead of running a higher quantity of media) that my phosphates gradually decline even though I ramp up feeding the fish. After a month or so, I have fatter, happier fish with nitrates around 5ppm and phosphate around .03. Color is returning and polyp extension is good throughout the day and night. I think so many of us get hung up on bringing nitrates down that the imbalance allows phosphates to slowly creep up. When a system is nitrogen starved phosphate cannot be reduced.

Personally, I've seen my best SPS coloration when nitrates bounce between 5 and 10, and phosphates are .03 - .05. You already seem to know what you're doing. Your tank looks great, but for that extra little pop it would help to feed more, remove as much detritus as possible from your sump, sand, liverock and overflows and change your gfo more often instead of adding more at your regular intervals.

HTH

 

[Ptyochromis]

Your tank is amazing. I would do a weekly night time feeding of rotifers (or other foods in the 50-400µm range).

IMO 7.33 for alk is a bit low. Bump it up to 8.5 or 9, you will get faster growth and it will help with your low pH.

If I were in your shoes I would do 3 things, night time feedings, up the kh, and max out the lights (increase over time).

 

[rovster]

Alk of 9 might be a little high for ulns

 

[dtum]

This is going to come off like a doooochebag, but I think that your tank looks amazing with those lights. I would not jack around with it too much since I think that you are probably maxed out with color and you might do more harm than good. Perhaps you can get tbd320's opinion - he kinda has the same issues IIRC and might be able to provide more specific help.

What is the margin for error with your Phosphate test kit? .05 is a tad high, but probably OK within the test kit range. The only thing that I might suggest is that if .05 is accurate that you get it down a bit.

My Phosphates are checked with Hanna Alk, I also checked for Phosphorus and I'm pretty sure of the precision overall.
I have been running at even lower Phosphates but did not see much of a change.