SPS corals turning brown

[Oliver Giesler]

My tanks been running nearly 2 yrs and I recently started adding SPS corals to it in the begining they looked fine but now some of them have turned light brown but they are still covered in polips.They also show signs of growing.My tank parameters are all in the correct range
SG 1.025
Ca 450/480
Mg 1450
NO2 00
NO3 00
PO4 0.02
NH3 00
temp 25/26 c
Any ideas and all help is welcome.

 

[Danny_15]

Same thing is happening to me. Me encrusting superman coral is growing but and the bottom of the plug is lightish brown since i have it on its side.

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[Valentini89]

I'm not experienced with SPS corals but maybe they are starting to bleach?

 

[Stickboy97]

Lighting! I had a guy give me a frag that was totally brown, he had it under some old T5 bulbs & when I put it in my tank (LED Lighting) it started blowing up & is a bright neon green & blue color now.

Also, SPS needs somewhat dirty water for food (nitrates & phosphates) & flow, lots of it. Some do keep low nutrient tanks with SPS, but they still need some to eat.

 

[thegrun]

Browning out is usually a sign of insufficient lighting, but I would also bring your salinity slowly up to natural seawater salinity 1.026.

 

[Lsufan]

Sps do tend to get darker & can even brown out with to high of nutrients. They tend to get lighter with lower nutrients. It doesn't always play out that way depending on the system. If your tests are right then I would guess lighting too, but it's hard to say without knowing more.

 

[Horace]

You didn't list your Alkalinity. This is the number 1 most important parameter. Also the stability of these params are very important.

But assuming your params above are correct, which I doubt u really have 0/0 no3/po4, but that is usually problematic. Your corals will often starve and lose color under those conditions due to lack of other nutrients available in the water. I would double your feeding and report back in 3 to 4 weeks

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[Horace]

Lighting! I had a guy give me a frag that was totally brown, he had it under some old T5 bulbs & when I put it in my tank (LED Lighting) it started blowing up & is a bright neon green & blue color now.

Also, SPS needs somewhat dirty water for food (nitrates & phosphates) & flow, lots of it. Some do keep low nutrient tanks with SPS, but they still need some to eat.

Saying they need dirty water is a pretty significant overstatement. While I do agree they usually do better with measurable nitrate....calling 2-3ppm dirty water is pretty misleading. By most standards, that's VERY clean.

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[Stickboy97]

Dirty vs ulns. People used to strive for 0, 0 and now we all know they need some nutrients in the water... dirty water by the old standards.

Some even look for 5 - 10ppm

 

[Fonn]

It's not uncommon for sps to brown out when transferring from one tank to another due to different environment, lighting, nutrients ... etc... always place newly added sps on the bottom and move them up slowly. Anyway, keep your water parameter stable and be patient.