What causes SPS color loss?

[Reef Bass]

Are you feeding?

 

[catman78]

You need to feed them.

In my experience using Zeo Coral Vitalizer and AA's has worked quite well. Also produces better colors in softies and LPS.

 

[clowndude]

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.

My problem is kind of similar to yours. My orange cap, green monti look awesome. I also now have a all green tri that should have purple, but it's all gone. I can't keep the purple and blue's in the corals. My garf bonsai looks nothing like it should because it's now been brown for a while. I've notice also the my polyp extension sucks. I working on getting my phosphates down. I added a skimmer to the tank and I'm running chem-pure elite. Maybe I need to feed the corals?

I seem to have the Alk stable as I test it day to day and it's always 9.75-10 so that is good. I drip kalkwasser as my top off. I'm running a 14K Hamilton 150watt over my biocube about 3-4 inches off the water. I'm not really convinced that the hamilton bulb isn't the problem either. I am thinking about going to a 20K XM or a 14K phoenix... thoughts?

Any ideas? I know there are a bunch of SPS experts here.

 

[d-maz]

Are you feeding?

No, I don't feed anything to my corals. If it could be a nutrient problem, wouldn't adding more stuff to my water only add nutrients?

 

[triguy]

^^^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.

This is interesting here. I actually posted this question on another forum. How much can adding the thawed water change p04? If you are saying your thawed water was .50ppm, then feeding twice a day with this could have an impact, right?

Not to hijack, but my p04 was reading 0ppm on hanna checker, a week later, .19ppm, then .11ppm two days later, wondering if it is the frozen food water.

Most of my sps color is great except for my Red Planet which is brown

 

[Logzor]

I find that salinity, lighting, and nutrient levels impact color the most.

Corals tend to get very light and lose color when salinity is too high, there is too much light, or even when nutrient levels are too low.

 

[BeanMachine]

This is interesting here. I actually posted this question on another forum. How much can adding the thawed water change p04? If you are saying your thawed water was .50ppm, then feeding twice a day with this could have an impact, right?

Not to hijack, but my p04 was reading 0ppm on hanna checker, a week later, .19ppm, then .11ppm two days later, wondering if it is the frozen food water.

Most of my sps color is great except for my Red Planet which is brown

Some will say they always rinse frozen cubes, others say not. I know Reef Nutrition Mysis Feast for instance comes prerinsed so all you need to do is drop some in the tank.

I go back and forth on this, my po4 has stayed low so I don't worry about rinsing so much anymore.

Wickedfish brought up a good point about flakes, which is why I usually go with those as a staple.

Another point would be that yes corals do need to feed from what I've read. You need to find a balance between maintaining low no3 and po4 levels and increasing the feeding.

I broadcast feed the SPS PhytoFeast and OysterFeast personally.

Cyclops as well.