SPS Wild Colonies Coloration

[shandy_say]

Most of my SPS are wild colonies. I have had them for about 2 months already and most of them are still brown or have a greenish coloration already. All of my SPS have great polyp extension and some are already starting to grow. Some have even started to encrust the LR where i placed them on.

I read somewhere that normally Wild colonies of SPS brown out during the 1st few months and then later on color up. Would anyone know how long this usually takes?

 

[eros]

Sometimes they never color back up, it just depends on the coral. Wild corals are a gamble.

 

[shandy_say]

thanks eros! Its just almost close to impossible to get aquacultured frags here. Most of the sps sold here are wild colonies so there's not really much of a choice. Some of the colonies/frags i have arrived almost bleached. They have since then turned brown while some turned green. Im not really sure if they were to green to begin with.

A local reefer said that his wild colonies used to be brown also. But after maybe 3 months they turned green, then turned pale green then started to color up.

Has anyone experienced this? Been reading and searching all over the net and can't seem to get any information regarding this.

 

[eros]

Some might turn out to be real gems. All corals were wild once.:lolspin:

My only non-aquacultured piece is a maricultured Millepora colony. It has done great but likes a lot of light.

Another option is to make frags of the wild colony. A corals growth pattern is largely influenced by lighting and flow, if you can't reproduce the environment it's used to it might not to so well. Hope that helps. Good luck.

 

[shandy_say]

Still hoping that do become gems. However with how things are going now i think they are just emerald (green) gems. Been dosing koralcolor already and lugols but i havent noticed any changes or improvement in color. I guess only time can tell.

 

[waxy]

I only go with wild colonies, it's 1/20 corals I have are aquacultured.

With Aquacultured, I get tired of seeing everyone having the same stuff.

ORA, LE, Tyree etc.

With wild, it just goes strictly with the species name. Nothing fancy.

Just like what Eros says, some corals don't color up too well. They stay brown, since we're unable to mimic the exact motions of the ocean. Not to mention the lack of continuous nutrients in our tanks.

Don't get me wrong though, some wild pieces color up a lot more intense than they are from the ocean.

 

[shandy_say]

Thanks waxy! What is usually your experienced time frame for those wild colonies to color up assuming all water parameters are at optimum levels?

 

[waxy]

You're looking at 2-4+ weeks.

I run a CA Rx, Dose Kalk, Dose 2 Part and do water changes every 4 weeks.

I don't do water changes every 1-2 weeks because it's expensive!

Also very time consuming in a 440g tank...

 

[shandy_say]

Thanks waxy. I dose cal and alk every other day now. Since last week the calcium uptake of my tank has grown exponentially even when i gave away some of my sps frags already. I also do water changes 1x a month but i skim wet so sometimes i top off with saltwater instead of RODI. I guess my sps will never color up. It has been more than a month already and no improvement in color. Any suggestions on what to do?

 

[fijiblue]

What kind of light do you have? Usually corals turning green that are normally not is a sign of needing more light...

 

[sportzfish]

What kind of light do you have? Usually corals turning green that are normally not is a sign of needing more light...

I thought turning green was another indicator that there are too many nutrients in the tank?

 

[tibob32]

I can tell you from what happened in my tank when I added uncured dry rocks, PO4 will turn some sps green

PS Always cure marco rocks

 

[Ricunger]

I also heard the PO4 adds more green pigments.

 

[mrvicz]

yo shandy,

sad to hear about your coral's colors. try keeping rock solid parameters - salinity, alk, ca, mg, k... aside from the given zero on nitrates & p04. also try dosing amino acids perhaps? jmho

best of luck!

 

[waxy]

Phosphates ( P04 ) cause greener pigments.
Sometimes even brown, due to massive amounts of PO4.

While small traces of nitrates is good, since it's food for the corals.

I'm not a believer in all those other random chemicals that are off the shelves.
Which claim , proven to be "growth hormones" for the corals. Nothing you can't get from dosing 2 part, and kalk Kalk has everything!

I just use the simple basic stuff.

2 Part and Kalk.

My light consists of 4 20k MH Mogul 250watts. Supplemented by 8 54watt T5 Actinics.

With a smaller volume tank, I would suggest changing the water more frequently.

Just like living in a small house, do you vaccuum one a week or one a month?

 

[spc1spc1]

I run 12 80 watt t-5s on a 30" deep tank. I place my wild colonies on the bottom until the color comes back then slowly raise them up. I found my aussie corals take about a month to get color back. I have some others that took almost 6-7 months. I guess different corals adjust at their own rates.

 

[jackson6745]

With Aquacultured, I get tired of seeing everyone having the same stuff.

ORA, LE, Tyree etc.

.

Man, you said that right. Everyone has the same corals these days. Even over here, 5 years ago more guys in my area would get wild colonies. Everyone had something different. I guess it's better for the ocean that we deal mostly in frags though:worried2:

 

[waxy]

Well, many aquacultured colonies derived from the wild.

Once in captivity they're bred for a sole purpose.

Regardless, I do love wild corals. Just like what spc1spc1 said, it takes some time for wild corals to color up.
You will learn to appreciate them after a few months when they color up haha.

As much as I like the aquacultured stuff, I like wild corals more.

 

[jcal]

My first wild colony of a nasuta browned out and about 2 months later color came back.

 

[shandy_say]

What kind of light do you have? Usually corals turning green that are normally not is a sign of needing more light...

Im currently using a 250watts 20K Metal Halide lamp with a large lumenbright reflector running for 6 hours a day. So I don't think light is an issue here.

In addition the po4 in my tank is constantly at 0.01 using 2 test kits (elos and API). Plus im constantly running phosban in my tank in a reactor with low flow.

Nitrates on the other hand go as high as 5ppm during feeding and revert back to 0 after my oversized skimmer (Reef Octo DNWB-150) removes whatever food is left. I also run a dsb and a LR fuge with cheato on a reverse photoperiod which doesn't even grow that fast. Haven't even needed to trim the cheato since i put it in which was almost 2 months ago.

I really don't know what else to do.