Sunlight Contribute to Browning Acros?

epon

epon

New member
Since moving my tank to a south facing sunroom with windows and open blinds facing the front and sides. The tank recieves an hour of direct sun to the sides in the morning and evening with the indirect light during the day. I know the move was stressful and caused some browning but I'm wondering if the sunlight isnt also helping. I changed the year old 2 x 175w xm 20k and 2 x uri 03 white and 2 x uri 03 blues to 2 x 175w 14k sakis and all uri 03 blue. I did acclimate to the sakis with eggcrate and a 6 hour photoperiod that I slowly ramped back up to 8 hours. I think the 6 hour period was for aprox 4 days. I should have some water quality numbers for you guys but mainly I'm looking for responses that have experience with sunlight browning acros. The system has stayed the same and nothing has happened husbandry-wise that is out of the ordinary.

Pics for comparisson and the colors int he pics are a bit off but for the most part they are a good representaion.

Before the move and sunlight:





And after: ( these were takin with a different camera but you get the idea )





Thanks in advance
 
Epon how were the 20k xm's? Were the lights a nice bluish white or were they too blue? And how do you like the iwasaki's? I was gonna go with the 15k. Is that the one you're thinking of or do they make a 14k too?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9416165#post9416165 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by stony_corals
No, it's your nutrient levels.
Click to expand...

uh, ok.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9417964#post9417964 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReeferMonkey
How long ago did you move the tank? That seems like it would be more of a factor than sunlight.
Click to expand...

Moved the end of last summer, just last month got the tank finished aquascaped.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9418066#post9418066 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ventralis321
Epon how were the 20k xm's? Were the lights a nice bluish white or were they too blue? And how do you like the iwasaki's? I was gonna go with the 15k. Is that the one you're thinking of or do they make a 14k too?
Click to expand...

The xm were more like actinics, great colors for the acros but didnt punch down very far. II'm only aware of one 175w bulb that Iwaski makes, whatever it is people are calling it. I like the bulb a lot. It was pretty yellow at first but has whitened up some as it's burning in.
 
No, it's your nutrient levels.
Click to expand...

Agreed, the move probably stired alot of Crap up ... definatly your prob... and the Sakis are quite bright white for a 15K.. so thats part of your problem too, your use to more of a POP blue.
 
I recall a thread a while ago talking about natural sunlight. Makes many acro browns/yellows in appearance. If you then view these corals under our typical specrum lights, they show their vibrant colors....

Not sure, maybe something similar happening here.
 
Well i've seen tanks exposed to only natural sunlight and the colors on the acros were superb! It had a wave maker which sucked up water and dumped it to give a surge through the whole tank. Can't say sunlight browns corals but adding more blue spectrum makes the flourescent colors pop out better.
 
i think what stony_corals is saying about your nutrient levels is that sps feed off the nutrients in the tank. When you moved you probably eliminated a good portion. People with lots of fish that feed heavily have really good colors in there sps because the corals feed indirectly off the nutrients from the fish poo. The only contradictory thing is you add large amounts of PO4 and need to remove it. People with really clean sand beds and no fish have pastel colored corals unless they dose amino acids or some type of food source for the corals.
My theory, from what i've gathered through experience and forums is that, nitrates actually cause corals to brown. I heard zooanthallle pigment is actually brown and the nitrates cause them to over grow turning the coral brown or shades closer to brown.
 
I moved the tank in such a way that I'm willing to bet my water parameters did not swing much at all. Although I dont have numbers I also bet there are no current detectable levels of nitrates or po4. Maybe I'll break down and take some water for testing since all my kits are old and will likely yeild bad numbers.

I can't recall if I've seen a thread about sunlight browning either, and couldn't find the sunlight browning threads in the free RC search ( and refuse to pay for it on principle of what RC was founded on ).

Thanks for the responses.

Maybe someone does .....
 
That means a trip to the dreaded lfs. :(

I got lucky with the google search and found this post, but he does mention further down they were coloring up. Maybe it's a function of how much sunlight they get and the lower kelvin of the sun.

Post Link

I'm leaning towards closing the blinds at this point. I miss my cartoon colored corals.

Forgot to mention my current fish load is:

Orange Spot Rabbit
McNeils Assesor
Pair of Skunks ( female is a little smaller than rabbit )
Pair of False Percs
Fat Mandy

When the tank was most colorful I only had the Assesor and the mandy in.
 
Thought this might help for those in th future who might find this thread.

Many of you might be familiar with Rick's greenhouse thread.

From pm ( with permission )

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

rick rottet wrote on 03/08/2007 10:15 AM:

as far as the sun turning corals brown...its possible. two schools of thought that ive read about, 1 is the sun stimulates overgrowth of the zooxanthellae, and 2 is there is a lot of red end spectrum in sunlight which causes the masking of the uv protecting pigments.
Can you find a piece of blue cellophane???something which will refract the spectrum and not reduce the intensity by much? ive got some blue refractive shade cloth in a 30% and a 50% shade. i did about two months of work with Dana Riddle this past summer on this very issue.
most of my issues have been with corals turning paler and losing color. i expected a little of that because my thinking is the sunlight is way more stimulating and the corals expel some of their zooxanthellae since less zoox can provide the same amount of nutrients (guessing...but guessing based on 1 1/2 years of observation under the sunlight and seeing near sterile culture tanks fill up with dinos as the corals pale out). that is with the majority of what im raising is softies. i do have one tank with a bunch of monti. i had some which were the dark drab cammo green which totally bleached out. one of them is coming back, but its brown, the other 3 are still bleached pretty bad. that big orange i got from henry is totally gone bleached dead . i got a huge red monti from Rv8tor which has been holding its color really well and ive had it since the beginning of november...but ive been putting fish and snails in each tank too. maybe my tanks were too sterile like henry suggested. hard to say since i changed so much in a short amount of time.
all of that to say yes, its possible. try the blue film thing for a month and see if it gets better???

it should be noted also that the sun can turn brown corals all kinds of intense colors too !!! i guess corals do what they gotta do to adapt

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I'm not sure if I can find the blue saran, and am thinking it's time to close the blinds.
 
His second idea is what I meant. Like when you take a pic of acros with the flash on the camera. I know at least for me, my acros look mostly brown/green/yellow with the camera flash (a few purples and blue will make it through in the pic, but not many).
 
It's not the sunlight. I had a few corals that had great coloration, they got almost 2 hours of sunlight a day.
 
I have my tank mounted next to a window, and I get 4-5 hrs of sunlight blazing in every day... Makes my growth incredible...

ANd NO my corals are not brown...

High nutrient levels + 14 k bulb... natural sunlight is 6500k yellow, switch back to 20ks. You'll be much happier with the colors.
 
Never mind...I misunderstood the OP. I thought he meant they look brown while in the sunlight. :rollface:
 
Epon you might want to take a look at the Suntube thread as well (can't seem to find it).

There are quite a few people growing SPS with them.
 
Well i've seen tanks exposed to only natural sunlight and the colors on the acros were superb!
Click to expand...

Dito... Anyone who doesnt believe this needs to contact Philip Root, hes got a greenhouse... and says that the colors are excellent... I can agree, Ive seen the corals he offers first hand... they are NICE!...

Sunlight does NOT cause corals to brown... but will make the not so " BLING"... due to the lack to Blue Spectra... the yellow overpowers the blue... and brings out more browns/yellows/reds.
 
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