Tons of PE little color

[Winwood]

So I have been having trouble getting the vibrant pink colors out of my birdsnests and pocilloporas. They have amazing PE however. In fact most people who view my tank comment on how much PE I am getting. The tank has been set up for about a year and parameters are as followed.

NO3= 0 API
PO4= 0.03 hannah
temperature= 78 degrees F
dKH= 8 API
calcium= 480 ppm
mag= 1380

Top off and water change water is off a well and filtered through my RO/DI system which keeps my TDS at 0. I do 15 gallon water changes every week or 2. The tank is a custom made 110 (42x24x26) and is lit by 1 400 watt radium 20k and flanked by 2 150 watt double ended 14k phoenix bulbs. I dose MB 7 sporadically and vodka at .7 ml a day. The tank is skimmed by an octopus NW 200 and calcium, magnesium, and alk are all maintained by a octopus calcium reactor.

I am very frustrated with the lack of glowing pink corals in my tank as I have several and all are very nice brown color. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[joker295]

where do you have it? have you tried moving it ?

 

[dvanacker]

sounds like it could use more light.

 

[Winwood]

Joker- I have tried moving it in the past with same results

dvanacker- I may go to a 2 400 watt radium system in the future. I feel like with my current setup it should be getting plenty of light but perhaps not.

Thanks for the replies

 

[aurora]

Radium bulbs lose their light intensity very quickly and should be changed every 6 months. I think they are at about 50-60% after 6 months depending on your ballast. Are you running carbon to clarify your water? If you are not, start slowly with a small amount first. People have fried their corals when running too much carbon all of a sudden.

 

[Winwood]

Radium bulbs lose their light intensity very quickly and should be changed every 6 months. I think they are at about 50-60% after 6 months depending on your ballast. Are you running carbon to clarify your water? If you are not, start slowly with a small amount first. People have fried their corals when running too much carbon all of a sudden.

Yeah I changed my Radium about 2 months ago and I do run 1/2 cup of ROX carbon. Carbon is changed every couple of weeks as well.

 

[M007]

Joker- I have tried moving it in the past with same results

dvanacker- I may go to a 2 400 watt radium system in the future. I feel like with my current setup it should be getting plenty of light but perhaps not.

Thanks for the replies

You have plenty of light for both. In fact, more than enough. I have a birds nest under 8 x 54W T5 @20" and it is nice and pink and grows like a weed. Have you got a pic or two to share? I have seen some birds that are brown, and they had extreme PE. Was it ever pink?

 

[allsps40]

Well everything looks good IMO. Where do you have them placed under the 150s of the 400? Have you checked potassium level in your tank? Carbon dosing can deplete potassium quickly and most salts have low potassium already. Lugol's is a great source for it but test for it first. Potassium play a roll in pink and purple color in sps. Many other things can effect colors as well.

 

[jimrawr]

Following this thread myself. I recent had a really bad algae problem which I believe led to all my sps browning out (lack of nutrients. GHA was out competing the sps). Ive since ridded my tank of the GHA and maintain stable ca/alk/mg. I am about 3 weeks since getting rid of the algae and am slowly starting to see color come back to my sps but its taking longer than I thought it would.

 

[MechEng99]

Carbon dosing can deplete potassium quickly and most salts have low potassium already. Lugol's is a great source for it but test for it first.

Lugol's is not a great source for potassium. In fact, the amount you'd have to dose in order to raise potassium to a NSW level (depending on where you start) would probably turn your aquarium to pee yellow and would overdose iodine. I've dealt with low potassium levels, and low potassium doesn't just "affect pink and purple colors" - it affects all SPS in different ways. Stylo's and Pocci's lose their PE and coloration (sounds like in this case PE is not an issue...so this is probably not a potassium issue). Acropora's lose their blue coloration, etc. If it was a potassium issue, I would use a more pure form of potassium that won't significantly increase other levels. But, it doesn't sound like that's the case.

More likely the corals were never pink to begin with...or a test kit is off.

 

[llebcire]

Sounds like you have enough light, but what's your photoperiod?

I used to run my lights way too long (common problem) and when I shortened my colors eventually came back.

Currently running T5's @ 9 hours actinic + 7 hours daylight.

-Eric

 

[allsps40]

Yes if you have really low potassium lugols is not the best thing to use. Strait potassium would be better.

 

[Winwood]

Here's a picture of my tank it's not the best but you can see the BN above the orange monti and the pocillopora on the left next to the acro table. It's kind of hard to tell but both are super bushy.

Also some of my acros have browned recently because I moved things around in my tank but they seem to color back up with time. I'm mostly concerned about the two above mentioned corals.

 

[MechEng99]

Do you have a sump with more LR in it? If not, I'm going to take a wild guess that one of your test kits is off. That's an awful lot of fish (I think I see 24?) in that size, and some of them are messy eaters/very frequent eaters. Do I see two tangs in there? Be careful with that.

Borrow a friends NO3 kit or get a LFS you trust to test it for you. API isn't the best (it's ok IMO, but I prefer other test kits.)

 

[jimrawr]

Are they getting enough light? They seem really low in the tank

 

[potterjon]

Are they getting enough light? They seem really low in the tank

+1 on that. I have found that birdsnest and monticaps can grow very low in the tank, but not many other sps. As stated before, you have a lot of fish in there and I am also guessing a lot of nutrients from food and poo.

 

[allsps40]

+2 . Your tank seems pretty dim to me, could be the pic. Seems like it should be much brighter with 1 400w and 2 150w MH's on the tank. Check to see what your PAR is at your corals, needs to be 400-200 for most sps. How old are your bulbs and what ballasts are you running then on? I know the Radiums need to be replaced every 6 months and change my Phoenix bulbs at 9 months when I use them. Something else you may want to try is stop dosing the vodka. I saw a big improvement in my sps when I stopped. Water was free of nutrients and the sps where starving.