I'm still struggling with pale colors on my montipora. It's an extremely pale pink, almost white, but obviously growing and with good polyp extension. The Damicornis did get some color back, and the favia really hasn't changed at all since I put it in. I need to track down the cause and address accordingly. But I don't want to change things without confirming the cause.
I'm suspecting low nutrients, for many reasons. One is the pale color I mentioned, along with near zero growth on my kenya tree. Though that piece does seem healthy. I also have no coraline growth yet, and really haven't had any kind of algae in the tank to be honest. I'd have expected to see something at this point, but I only have very little bits of brown snot so far. That and my skimmer really isn't pulling anything either. So it's time to start routinely testing nitrates and phosphates, which I've been lazy about. I've really only been checking the alkalinity and calcium, occasionally magnesium.
I had been using Instant Ocean, and had it on subscription via Amazon, but for some reason it hasn't been available in the 50lb bags, so I'm going to switch to reef crystals. This should, in theory, have more trace elements and vitamins in it.
There are some other options I am considering as well. One is dialing back the lighting period, which I think I'll do either way. I'll cut about 30 minutes off to see how that works.
Another thought is the biopellets. I know they can be overly effective and I don't have much of a bio-load in the tank. So they might just be over-consuming nutrients on me. So I may pull some out of the reactor. Have to be careful adjusting biopellets though as it can cause a big shock to the tank if you add/remove too much at a time.
-Hans