WHat's the trick to keeping deeply coloured birdsnest?

[Andrew D]

I know they are supposed to be easier corals to keep, but whenever I've tried they brown out on me. All my other sps are quite colourful with me running phosphates at .25 to .5. Do they prefer lower nutrients? I have lots of T5 light and my alkalinity and calcium are also pretty high at 9 and 450 respectively. I have good growth, just no colour.

 

[Gotzegot28]

Keep phos and nitrates in equivalency. They LOVE high light. The more the better. Mine were ugly till i moved them up, then in a week the blossomed into gems

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[Reefer40b]

In my experience once they adapt to your tank you can keep it in high or lower light. I bought a softball size purple polyp green birdnest and it was under a 6 bulb T5 with reefbrite strips when put in my tank under my LED it bleached... I lowered my alk 9.3 to 8 and put it on the sand it now glows like its under antinic light all day. I would lower your phosphate nice n slow and make sure you also have some nitrate or it will never get nice n dark colored. Keep them balenced

 

[Piper27]

I have never seen a birdsnest brown unless it was in a very dark area and wasn't getting enough light. I have never ran phosphates that high but I would assume with really good light there wouldn't be a problem. Even though I wouldn't recommend keeping high phosphates with everything else in check and very high light it should work, .5 is at the very high end though. All this assuming your tank very mature.

 

[Andrew D]

Thanks everyone. Not sure how much I can do about my phosphates with the fish load I have, nor how much I'm willing to do given how great everything else is doing. My ATS is really flourishing so I'm hoping to keep my levels down between .1 and .25. Sounds though like I need to move them up and centre for better light as they've been closer to the bottom or close to the back on the top under my eurobrace.