Trying to get my large granulosa to color up, help please.

[JAustin]

Grani is on the left. When I bought it it was very blue. Now it's most light brown and greed with faint blue tips. All other acroporas are colored up well. Po4 in the water column is .03 via Hanna. Nitrate 0.

Cal 420
Alk 9
Mg 1340

Lights are 244 days old, Phoenix 14k 2x 250 hqi.
B+ and purp+ t5s in tek retro reflectors.

Flow is everywhere.

I'm in the process of removing my sand bed which is a CC and fine mix. I know, CC, what was I thinking. Well I really liked the way it looked and I didn't have a nitrate problem. However I was having to vac it out often to remove detritus.

Ill be adding in arag 1mm sand in hopes to correct any nutrient issues.


Where do you keep your granulosa and do you have issues keeping its color?

Coral in question is on the far left.

 

[REEF SMAC]

I guess my first question is did and/or does this granulosa have this great color in another tank but not in yours?
Some just don't have great color unless they are growing on a raft somewhere in Indonesia.

All your params and lighting seem to have what it takes. Maybe a little more NO3 would help.

 

[JAustin]

Yes, it looked like this 5 months ago.

 

[REEF SMAC]

Hard to tell in your FTS (very nice BTW) what the color is like now.

The tips are not a deep blue now? The color of the tips are fading but the rest of it is browning?

 

[82ndengineer]

My buddy gave me two pieces from his which was beautiful, I put one in my 60 gallon under 20k and ATI T5's and the other in my 240 under XM 10k. Totally different even though they are in same system, but the 10k one is same as in his tank the one under my 20k( also an XM) is just kinda bleh. I think it might be lighting that makes it look better.

 

[Apisto]

Beautiful colony! What was your NO3 reading 5 months ago? And did the colony color down quickly or over a long period of time?

 

[JAustin]

REEF SMAC, the color now is mostly brown with a small hint of green. Only the 1/8-1/4" of the tips is blue. The guy I got the coral from had it under T5s 6 bulb tek I believe.

Apisto, it lots its majority blue color quickly after I got it and it hasn't improved since. It does keep growing though, no issues there. No3 has alwayse been undetectable via salifert tests.

I'm just clueless. I want to give this acro what it needs to turn blue again. More light, less light, 12k halides, or 20k halides.

 

[JAustin]

Just took this photo today.

 

[Apisto]

It looks a little nutrient starved to me, but it could just as easily be a coral that takes more than 6 months to regain its full color after the stresses of a tank transition. Blue granulosas seem much more uncommon than purple, for instance, which leads me to believe that they are harder to maintain. Smooth-skinned acros are a breed unto themselves anyway.

What does the original owner say about husbandry of this coral?

 

[JAustin]

Apisto, you may be correct on the nutrient starved. I was running BRS BP reactor so I could feed the fish a little more. I recently taken the reactor off line due to me seeing no added benefits of running one. That may have been stripping the tank a little too much. Perhaps I need to wait a month and see if the BP reactor was the issue with this species of acro.