What causes SPS color loss?

[d-maz]

Other than water quality, what do you think contributes to SPS corals to lose their color? I've had zero success with any ORA SPS keeping the color it was when I bought it. I run 2-250w DE phoenix bulbs with T5 ATI super blues. I get good growth, just can't keep the color. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[wickedfish]

Have you measured your PAR? How long is your photo period? Are you dosing anything? how often do you test your water for ALK, cal, mag, phosphates, nitrates? WHat do you run in reactors?
Your flow is good with 2 mp40 s. how many fish do you have and how often do you feed?

Not highjacking just empathizing with you>>>>>My problem right now is my leds are lightening all the corals that get higher par. My blues suck on 75% of my stuff. Purples could be better. Greens and yellows are great if not electric in color. What colors are you having problems with?

I ended up buying a potassium test out of curiosity, hasn't got here yet. But potassium defficiency might be my issue, and possibly yours?????

 

[doca]

beside water parameters, i would say that you need more blues...maybe a couple superblues more, or more kelvins in your MHs....

anyway, always seems to be with water quality...are your ORA frags coming darker or white???

 

[smoyer]

Sps location in the tank can contribute. I have had a frag do poorly in one location and once I moved it to a new location it turned around. Flow: too much or too little, Placement in tank: too far or too close to light source. For example my pearlberry struggled at first until I moved it closer to the light and in a higher flow area.

 

[Reef Bass]

I agree Pearlberry likes flow.

IMHO, I think you glossed over the biggest - water quality. Sure, flow and placement are also important. I've had corals go from vibrant to brown to vibrant again all in the same tank powered by the same equipment with the same lights on the same schedule with the same tank mates.

Offhand I suggest checking your phosphates.

 

[adambirk]

i would have to agree that nutrients are number 1 on color. what are the corals doing? are they browning? you say you have good growth so that would leave me to believe that the color loss is from nutrients. you say ora corals is this all you have in your tank or do you have other sps also? is so how are the others that arnt ora doing?

would also help it you were to give us perameters on your water.

my money would be on high phosphate. it really is amazing how phosphate of .1ppm can brown out sps.

 

[Thairun]

i would have to agree that nutrients are number 1 on color. what are the corals doing? are they browning? you say you have good growth so that would leave me to believe that the color loss is from nutrients. you say ora corals is this all you have in your tank or do you have other sps also? is so how are the others that arnt ora doing?

would also help it you were to give us perameters on your water.

my money would be on high phosphate. it really is amazing how phosphate of .1ppm can brown out sps.

+1... on all browning I head on firstly high phosphate, IMHE.

 

[clowndude]

What is considered to be a safe range for phosphates? I'm have the same problem. Tested my phosphates and they are around .05. Green acroporas seem to be okay, but purples tips and all went away. Also I'm running a hamilton 14K and have been considering making the switch to a phoenix 14K as those seem to really make acroporas shine their colors.

 

[Norwood IND]

What is considered to be a safe range for phosphates? I'm have the same problem. Tested my phosphates and they are around .05. Green acroporas seem to be okay, but purples tips and all went away. Also I'm running a hamilton 14K and have been considering making the switch to a phoenix 14K as those seem to really make acroporas shine their colors.

You should strive to have your phosphates at zero/undetectable.

 

[clowndude]

What do most of you run to combat phosphates? I'm thinking of running phosguard, or is there something better out there? What do you think about the light? Is it worth making the switch or should I go to a 20K. I only have a 150 watt MH on my 29 biocube.

 

[Ostentum]

You dont want phosphates and nitrates at zero, some are needed for coral coloration. Pretty much everything plays into coral coloration, flow, lighting, bioload, feeding, nitrates, phosphates, alk etc etc. If he is getting good growth, I would be tempted to believe the cause is probably be too low nutrient level and the corals are starving, which will cause the sps to fade in color. More feeding, add some more fish should help out with that, if it is the root cause.

 

[adamPL]

I have same problem, 100% phosphates. Buy hanna PH meter. Before, on regular tests was "0" from PO4 hanna meter 0.19. Now I have 0.09 and colors slowly coming back.

 

[clowndude]

I have same problem, 100% phosphates. Buy hanna PH meter. Before, on regular tests was "0" from PO4 hanna meter 0.19. Now I have 0.09 and colors slowly coming back.

Once you realized you were at .19, what actions did you do to get the phosphates down? Change feedings or run a phosguard or something?

 

[Haksar]

I have the same problem,OT sorry to hijack your thread.
I run a GFO and stil my po4 reading is 0.08.The po4 reading out of the reactor is 0.03.
I have been running the GFO only for two weeks.I dose Vodka and Vinegar on a 136gallon tank mainly with SPS.I am using Hanna photochecker and No3 is 5ppm and ALK is 7.

 

[wickedfish]

^^^u might have to add more gfo to your reactor, also if you feed meatier foods wash the food in RO water and strain. Some of the frozen foods do not really use filtered water to freeze their foods. I tested a few variety of cubes water with the hanna checker, through the roof .50 and higher. I have had success with flaked spirulina, in aiding to keeping the phosphates at 0 on the checker along with every 10 days changing the gfo powder, or when it cakes , whichever comes first.

 

[adamPL]

I start to run GFO. After food unfreeze, wash it. I am still not at the "O" PO4 but see improving. my 2 cent

 

[Thairun]

I have same problem, 100% phosphates. Buy hanna PH meter. Before, on regular tests was "0" from PO4 hanna meter 0.19. Now I have 0.09 and colors slowly coming back.

Faced the same experience here, being fooled by the salifert test kit for awhile which always reflect undetechable. After browning taking over on my SPS, started to buy hanna checker and discovered PO4 0.16 ppm. So to address clowndude, am doing the same run GFO back (I found Rowa the best so far). I dripped PO4 remover as well aggresively. My misstake is I dropped down the PO4 level to fast in 2 days to 0.056ppm, which suffered some of my long time LPS. Needless to say my SPS regained back the color. Now everything back to normalcy.

 

[wickedfish]

I Have discovered its never good to reach a long term goal in this hobby, to soon.

I nuked my tank by lowering phosphates and nitrates to quickly. My experience only, not saying it will happen to anyone else, but when we change things too quickly too soon its bound to have unpleasant consequences in our water chemistry and an inbalance in our reefs.

 

[smoyer]

I think we all agree about the water quality as being very important but I think he wants other reasons

 

[d-maz]

My colors just seem to fade to a very light shade of what they started out at and some do brown out at the base. The new growth has color but is faded. I do run gfo. I do not dose anything. Some SPS corals in my tank look OK(mostly the greens and yellows), purples, and blues look like crap. Photo period was just cut back from 8 hours on my MHs to 6 about a week ago to see if that will help.