WHY CANT I GET COLOR AhHHHHHH

[bigbuckdown]

So ive had my system running for 2 years now and im still not happy i get a gorgeous peice and when it hits my tank it just turns brown. It happens in mostly pink and red sps. I run LEDs but i cant say its them because ive seen other tanks with LEDs and everything looks great. I run the AI sol blues. My blues and purples are ok but anything else including SOME sps thats supposed to have a hint of green turn brown. I have tried some supplements from zeo thats supposed to help in coloring up sps but it doesnt help. Even tried potassium dosing and nothing. My nitrates are at .2 and po4 is hovering around 5 i do weekly water changing of 10 percent and only feed once a day a mixture of brine and mysis.i have around 15 fish in a 100 TWV system. Only thing i can think of is my skimmer may be under rated. its rated for 100 to 150. I dont know im at a loss.someone told me to keep my carbon going and get rid of my phosban reactor but ive been told so many things im afaid taking the po4 reactor will do harm. everything is growing great just no color :headwallblue:

 

[t4zalews]

Your po4 is super high if its at 5. You should be around .03 and I would suggest buying a hanna po4 tester if you don't have one. Unless you made a mistake on the original posting..ur phosphate is to blame

 

[bigbuckdown]

its .05. and it is tested with a hanna meter.

 

[Keithcorals]

Sometimes a picture can really help ID a problem

I would like to know more about your lighting.
How long are you running them?
At what intensaty ?

If your nitrate and phosphate are where you said then your skimmer is good and it's not a nutrient problem.

What is your ALK at and how stable is it?

 

[REEF SMAC]

its .05. and it is tested with a hanna meter.

Glad you cleared that part up.

It is not really uncommon for a new piece to brown out when it first goes into another tank. It should color back up once it acclimates and becomes happy though.

I would not believe that your phos reactor is causing your corals to turn brown. If anything your phos level would probably be even higher without it making things even more brown.

What kind of photo period are you running? How bright?
Have you always had this color problem? Or is this something that happened over time?
How old are your LEDs?
Ca?
Alk?
Mg?

 

[Setragni]

I blame the Ais, i was running two of them, switched back to T5s and one week later bam!!!!
My reds, pinks and yellows are back on track.

 

[bigbuckdown]

i run a cal reactor so its pretty much always stable. i have always had this problem BUT i also had AEFW that i didnt know about. i have since eradicated them using the zeo flatstop and havent noticed them in quite sometime. even my tri color validia is making a nice come back with new growth and blue starting to come back. i was running homemade LEDs and made the switch to AI around march.they were brand new. my photo period is 11AM B15 RB 24-1145 W23 B33 RB34--12 W37 B56 RB67 RAMP60--230 W60 B73 RB73 RAMP 15--725 W50 B59 RB61 RAMP 20--905 W29 B38 RB57- 1005 B16 RB31 RAMP 10---1205 RB2 OFF AT 2AM...I didnt know how to set up the lights so i just made it the way the color looked on my tank. If anyone has a great photo period for AI sol blue please let me know. as long as it is bringing red pinks and yellows out. as for new pieces no i have a mille that has been in my tank now since february and it is still brown though it has grown considerably

 

[bigbuckdown]

and my alk is usually at 8.7

 

[bigbuckdown]

Strawberry shortcake

Strawberry shortcake

i see so many wonderful corals i want but why spend 50 to 100 on a frag if they are going to grow and look like this.its been in my tank since feb. was beautiful for about a week

 

[swanny]

Add t5 suuplementation to get a fuller spectrum color. I did that with my ai sols and everything is coloring up nicely.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[OneReef]

I've been running AI Sols for almost a year. I've been thinking about going back to radium halides. The Sols are ok, but I just don't see the great popping colors like I got with my 250w Radium halides. I feel the Sols are missing something in the spectrum. M water quality was always stable, biopellets, good skimmer. The only thing it could be is my lights, cause I had the same water quality with my halides, but I see a definite difference. To me the color of my Sols is more monotone dull.


This first pic is under 250w Radiums of my last tank, the second picture is my new tank under AI Sols for a year.

 

[bigbuckdown]

its hard to tell in your pictures because its not the same corals as before. How are your red pink and yellow SPS? As for adding t5 supplements i got rid of my t5 because of all the hype of ai sol blue. now i have to add more t5? these lights cost 1300 dollars and i should have got a better light for that price to where i wouldnt need any other lights. plus i cant fit anything else in my canopy. it really stinks spending all that money to get loss of colors. but ive seen LED tanks that have the colors im missing so its also hard to say its def that

 

[OneReef]

I think one of the biggest difference is that I have never gotten my AIs cranked up with enough intensity. I would probably get better color and more growth with more %. I max out at around 60-65%. I just need to work on slowly increasing my intensity each week to get up to 90+%.

 

[bigbuckdown]

see i lowered my white . i was going higher like 2 percent every week and some corals started bleaching so now i am lowering them. i got as high as 70 on white at max

 

[bigbuckdown]

can you see the reds pinks and yellows in your corals?

 

[pimp2daizzo]

are you running gfo or anything?

 

[OneReef]

I don't have any yellow coral, the reds are more pink. Blues and purples seem the best colors to keep for me

 

[my2girls]

IMO blaming the AIs is a cop out. It's a pest/water quality issue. Adding a bunch of zeo supplements can change your water quality in a hurry (especially because you don't know what is in them).

I started out with DIY royal and white LEDs on a nano. No problem with color. I have an Acan Lighting fixture (on a different tank) that is just royal and cool white as well and color is mostly good. I have recently added violet LEDs to the mix for experimental purposes.

I've seen many tanks here on RC and in person running Sols as their only lighting. I think when reefers complain about color they are referring to perceived color. Sol blues will give you a windex color for sure. Put your corals under a different spectrum and I'll bet they're colorful. If they are truly brown, it water quality.

 

[bigbuckdown]

its amazing my water chemistry is off when they really are not. greens good,blues good,purples good but the only colors im not getting is the same colors all LED users are complaining they are missing? can you show me a picture of these colors in your tank under ACAN lighting i would love to see it. people that know me know im a fanatic about keeping my tank perfect. and the zeo supplements arent to blame because if you read my post my colors were the same before i started adding them and i tried the supplements after the fact

 

[my2girls]

I'll get you a pic when the tank lights come on today. All I can say is if you think it's definitely your lighting then change it. You can't expect to have perfect coloration after just having battled AEFWs.