SPS faded colors

P

pmt81777

New member
I have a few pieces that are a bit faded in colors and others are perfect.
Here are my parameters before anything else
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-0
Calcium-460 Red sea reef foundation pro
Alkalinity- 9
Magnesium-1400
Phosphate- 0 via hanna
SG. 1.026

I've read too much light could cause them to fade.. but its been a month shouldn't they have acclimated now ? So I thought maybe too little nutrients so I increased my feedings and another perfect coral faded so, I think too much nutrients is the culprit. Any other suggestions or advice ?
 
I had the exact same problem of pale and faded sps. I have very low nutrients as you probably have and when I lowered Alk from 9dkh to 7.2 and CA from 450 to 420 ,everything color up and started growing after few weeks.
I think that with very low nutrients alkalinity close to natural sea water is better.

Hope this help!
 
Yes. Since you have ultra low nutrients your corals are starving. Feed more coral food for SPS. Amino acids will also help bring them back from faded. Lower alk 7.5-8.5 in ultra low nutrient systems is better as well. I have a Poccilipora that starts to stn when alk goes over 8.5 dkh.
 
I just want to add that before lowering alkalinity , I played with photoperiod, amino acids and increase feeding with little or no results.
 
If you can, list out which individual acros that are cool and the ones that are fading. My guess is that you have too much white LED on the tank - the white LED emit too much of the wrong spectrum in the yellow and green range that can damage some SPS. Some lower depth SPS like Montipora, Pocilipora, Stylophora, Seritaphora and some acropora can take the extra yellow because the water has not filtered it out yet with depth. Around 20% white on that fixture might help.
 
I agree with jda. Try cranking down the white a lot. What percentage is it at?

I had a Kessil A350 and then an AI Sol over my tank and I could never get a few SPS species to color up. I always had my white at around 55-65%. If I went lower though some others would start to brown out a bit. I switched to MH a month or so ago and I'm already seeing color returning.

I'd look to the lights as the cause of faded SPS before nutrient issues but that's just me. A month may or may not be enough time for corals to acclimate but if it's just too intense no amount of time will do.
 
Lower leds all colors and implement a nutrition program for your corals. Heavy import and export. As nutrient levels increase so will the color and growth and this point slowly increase your Leds. I settled on 100% Blue and 50% white/multi color and found this to be most astatically pleasing for my tastes and the corals look great.

Here is my 320 with 12 120 fixtures over it:
fb2.jpg
 
tdb320reef said:
Lower leds all colors and implement a nutrition program for your corals. Heavy import and export. As nutrient levels increase so will the color and growth and this point slowly increase your Leds.
Click to expand...

+1

IME as light increases so should food, and I would not be afraid to let the nitrates creep up a little, it will give the corals some nutrients which they actually do need.
 
Thanks for all the advice. I already had my lights at 100%blue and 60% white etc. But I will ramp down the whites lower by 10% and start dosing fuel.
 
I wanted to post the same question and came across this thread. Don't mean to hijack the thread, but rather complement it with another set of symptoms, perhaps there's an overlap.

Some of my SPS exhibit the same symptoms: all green corals look great, very bright greens. Red/pink corals look ok, but some are not as bright as when I got them. The worst is for blue/purples, those start fading rather quickly and they are alive, but have a large chunk of their colour and are quite faded and pale.

My parameters are: Alk at 8.5-9 (recently I had them between 7-7.5, but did not notice much of a difference, several months). Salinity 1.025, Calcium and Magnesium are 400 and 1350. Phosphate is at 0.01 - 0.02, Nitrates have never been detected at all.

I use full complex of prodibio regularly, each week I change about 8% water.

For lighting I got 2 Radion Pros (my tank is 20 inches high) and have them on the following schedule:
http://www.aquaticlog.com/aquariums/dtum/4/lighting_profile

I feed my corals with ReefBooster by ProdiBio every other week and also try adding some other SPS dry foods once a week.
 
chad p said:
I had a Kessil A350 and then an AI Sol over my tank and I could never get a few SPS species to color up. I always had my white at around 55-65%. If I went lower though some others would start to brown out a bit. I switched to MH a month or so ago and I'm already seeing color returning.
Click to expand...

You already had low white light and your corals were not colouring up. Why do you think it would then colour up for others? And would not MH be bringing back the white part of the light spectrum way up?
 
wasted a year and a half of no growth and poor color because of low nutrients. Got my nitrates up to 2ppm and the growth and color took off...
 
MHG said:
wasted a year and a half of no growth and poor color because of low nutrients. Got my nitrates up to 2ppm and the growth and color took off...
Click to expand...

What steps did you take to get them up higher? More food in general, or coral specific food?
 
probably fed more, when I get down, I put in "aged" phyto, the smelly stuff, when my friend used to make nanochlorophus, it smelt like pop when fresh, I can increase my nitrates by putting in the "dead" smelling phyto
 
I'm exhibiting the same problem and more feeding seems to mean much more phosphates than nitrates. Colors in my sps were good when I had a good balance, but I believe my tank is and has always been nitrate limited. I have been dosing with zeovit coral vitalizer and pohls extra with no changes in color. My next step is sodium nitrate to hopefully help with color and growth. HTH-
 
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