Green Birds Nest SPS color

[jaustin]

Hey everyone,

I've got this fast growing GBN and it's turning brown, it's losing it's green color. It's about 8" below the water under a 175 14k mh and a 12k and antinic PC.

cal 420
alk 7-8
ph 8-8.3

I use RO top off water with 0 TDS and phos shows up as 0 on my salifert test kit. I dose strontium, iodine, lifo, kalkwasser, and trace elements

I have a german blue acro that's colored nicley as well as a couple of monti that have great color.

Does anybody have any experiance with these corals and do you know what they like.

thanks for any help
Jason

 

[glxtrix]

got a pic?

 

[ralph atl]

any algae in your tank? what about nitrates?

 

[jaustin]

no algae, i'll check nitrates

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[jaustin]

here is my german blue acro.....great colors

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[jaustin]

and orange monti

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[ralph atl]

how long have you had it?

 

[glxtrix]

hows the flow in your tank?

 

[jaustin]

flow is great now, wife was taking care of the tank because i was gone for a month and she hardley pluged in the Koralia4. Oh, it's 3-4 months old.....it's over double it's origional size.

thanks for all the response. Do you think it's flow related, because it was in a mild flow area when i was gone, now it's got lots of water movement.

thanks
Jason

 

[jaustin]

oh and amonia and nitrates are 0

ph is a bit low now 7.8 but it's on it's way up via kalkwasser drip. Wife interperited the color of the tesk wrong and was telling me it was over 8 but my callibrated eye reads it as 7.8 lol. But the coral was browning before i left last month.

 

[ralph atl]

Lights & nutrients are the biggest factor in color shift. I'm sure there are many more reasons, though. Are you using GFO? change media? I assume light bulbs less than a year old? Low flow would be an issue, too. Check everything & wait until you have it stable for a while again. As long as you have great growth, pe, wait it out a little.IMO

 

[jaustin]

Is GFO a phosphate remover? I have a sponge the absorbs phosphate and other things, it's been in there for 6 monts, may be time to put a new one in there.

Yeah bulbs are less than 6 months old will be changing them in a few weeks and keep them as spares. I'll be switching the halide from 14k to 10k as well as adding another halide.

 

[jaustin]

oh and mysterybox, what is that orange blue with green polyp sps you have? It's awesome!

 

[jaustin]

just did the salifert po4 test and it's 0, the coral just may need more flow and light. we'll see if the added flow helps. thanks again everyone.

 

[glxtrix]

what size is your tank, and what bulb are you using? I doubt it needs more light, I have had the iwasaki 175's over my tank for 1.5 years and they are amazing.

 

[jaustin]

it's a 65g tall with a wet dry sump and a 10g fuge. The bulbs are from a friend of mine that buys them in bulk, i foget what brand they are, i'll know when the two 10K bulbs get here.

I'm adding another SE MH because the 1 only seems to cover 80% of the tank. Light is a little lacking on the ends and I will be needing the light to be there for future sps.

here is a pic, sorry i suck at taking pics

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[ralph atl]

agreed, lights are most likely ok. suggest running a phosphate reactor with phosar or ROWA. Change it out every 2-4 weeks. Carbon, too. Keep your flow up.

That's my ORA Blue Tort from Drs. F&S.

 

[glxtrix]

if its not permanently glued down, I'd say try to move it a bit higher in your tank and see how it does. Other than that I think I've ran out of suggestions, lol.

 

[jaustin]

Thank you both, i'll look into a phos reactor. It's stuck where it's at for now, but another halide will be installed once my parts get here so i'm sure the par will be more than it is now once i've got the corals acclimated to the new light.

 

[jaustin]

Well the phos reactor is up and running with ROWA in it. I have is set to something like 50 GPH. We'll see if it colors up in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you all updated.