tri-color acros turn green

[jer77]

How come my tri-color acros, such as A. valida and A secale looked amazing when I got them but over time they have lost their blues and green polyps and turned a dark green color. Does this happen to anyone else? Why does this happen? This happens to a lot of my corals too. I have a 36x25x12 frag tank which used to have sand in it but I took it out recently to go BB. All of my parameters are at zero. I use a 20000K 250W bulb on 8 hrs a day with 2 actinic 95W actinic bulbs. Could the lights be too close of too far away? I keep them about 12" above the corals. Could it be that they were used to the environment with sand. The flow in the tank is provided by an manifold with two outlets, and 2 maxijets.

 

[jer77]

What I'm really asking is how do people keep the bright colors in acros and sps? I understand this question might be a subject that no one really fully understands, but any help is gracious.

 

[damienkee]

nutrient free?

 

[prop-frags]

This forum is literally full of threads with that question asked either outright, or embedded. Do some reading here - I know it takes a while, but the reading will really help you understand the things you need to do to have some success with SPS.

There's really no short answer or quick way to get what you're asking for. But a start is good lighting, good water flow, excellent water quality, and stability of all three of these things. You stated that all of your water parameters are zero. What about Alk, Ca, and Mg? How long have things been stable? Have you validated your test kits with other kits or LFS water tests? What kind of bio load does your system have? Most of these questions are listed here. The list seems like overkill, but it will get you thinking about the kinds of questions and answers that SPS Keepers obsess about.

 

[fishdoc11]

How long have they been green? IME some Acros will turn green upon a change in environment and sometimes take several months to change colors to what they will be in their new tank. I have had a couple take a year or more to finally come around, some just take weeks.
FWIW, Chris

 

[jjmcat]

What lighting do you have as far as the kelvin rating.THe lower the kelvin the more green and blue colors you will get.I have this problem now.I did turn a large brown millie a friend gave me green.He had the millie under 1400k hallides.

 

[jer77]

The frags are under a 20000k XM SE bulb running for 8 hrs a day. There are no livestock in the tank except for some scarlet hermits and trochus snails. My calcium is around 450 and the alk is around 10 dKH. Mg is very high around 1400 meq/L. The other corals in the tank show good growth. It could be that the tricolor frags and corals I get are mostly wild from tonga. The other corals I tend to get aquacultured. I try to by aquacultured when ever I can. They are definately hardier and hold their color.

 

[jer77]

I am going to add a new MH bulb in about a week. I have wired a new box for all the ballasts and just waiting for a new ballast to arive to replace the one that doesn't work. It will power a 10000K hamiltion SE MH. I'm not sure how long to have the new bulb run for, along with my other bulb and VHO's.

 

[fishypets]

What is your P04?

 

[jer77]

zero...

 

[RichConley]

THeres no good reason to run a 20K in a frag tank. Especially an XM 20k. Get some good light on there.