Tri-color help

[JohnV8r]

I have had this tri-color acro since it was a .5" frag (1.5 years ago). Unfortunately, the body of the coral browned out almost immediately in my system. I always thought that I wasn't patient enough when I was light acclimating it and moved it up to the top of my reef too quickly.

It currently resides 12" under the water and 17" under a 250W 20K Radium.

This coral's growth has been phenomenal. The polyp extention is awesome as well. Everything is great except for the browned out body.

Looking over my chemistry log since I got the coral, nitrates have been 1 - <1 ppm. Phosphate has been .03 or less with two minor spikes from a disturbed sandbed that resulted in a .09 and a .12 phosphate reading for a brief period of time. dKH has averaged between 8.5 - 9, with three incidents in 18 months where it was 9.5 - 10.

I feed oysterfeast a couple times a week.

Any suggestions on what can I do to try to get the body of this tri-color back to purple?

Thanks in advance.

 

[joelbegt]

I would try more intense light. Do you know the par it's under?

 

[JohnV8r]

I don't know the PAR levels. My reef is 48L x 28W x 30D. This coral is directly under a LumenMax Elite reflector at the highest point I can get it. It is 12" under the water surface and the lights are another 5" up.

The only other option without adding more rock to take it higher would be to go to 400W bulbs.

The growth rate has been so good that I really hadn't considered that it doesn't have enough light. I was hoping there might be something that would kick start the zooanthellae.

 

[biggles]

I would try taking a 1" frag and epoxy the plug to the back wall under more intense light rather than moving the entire colony. It looks very healthy and it might be a water parameter change that prompts better colors or even a lower light level - when i started keeping SPS i always toasted anything that lost color until a frag that dropped down and was left on the bottom because it was ugly colored up and taught me a valuable lesson. Good luck.

 

[JohnV8r]

@biggles: That is a PHENOMENAL idea! I can put one frag higher and one lower to see if it makes a difference.

Thanks for that!!!