sps loosing color
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phosphates
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Not enough nutrients, too much light, high phosphates, high alkalinity
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Bingo. Very good read on RC about color on acros. They really do better in a well fed tank as long as export is in equilibrium with input. Sorry I don't know how to post a link but don't tell anyone. I can on a PC but don't know how on a iPad.
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ALK.. I'm betting its low.
There are a lot of things that can cause them to loose brown, but if they are just fading COLOR.. .then it was ALWAYS low ALK in my case.. and I had a fair amount of SPS over the life of my last tank.
See what that reading is. As someone else mentioned PO4 can also do it, but IME not as often
There are a lot of things that can cause them to loose brown, but if they are just fading COLOR.. .then it was ALWAYS low ALK in my case.. and I had a fair amount of SPS over the life of my last tank.
See what that reading is. As someone else mentioned PO4 can also do it, but IME not as often
seth the wine guy
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Often, if you look at an acro tank wrong it will lose color. Especially on even calendar days or months with the letter "R" in them. Don't even get me started about what leap year can do.
Bottom line, there are SOOO many things that can trigger it and turning it around happens about as fast an an oil tanker doing a U-turn. Just test for all the parameters you can and slowly bring them back to where they need to be and KEEP THEM CONSISTENT. The biggest enemy to your tank is change. The corals will deal with consistently crappy parameters better than they deal with sometimes "perfect", sometimes "not so perfect parameters."
This advice more so applies to tanks with coral colonies. The larger the colony, the less agile they are on their feet so to speak. Frags are much more resilient.
Bottom line, there are SOOO many things that can trigger it and turning it around happens about as fast an an oil tanker doing a U-turn. Just test for all the parameters you can and slowly bring them back to where they need to be and KEEP THEM CONSISTENT. The biggest enemy to your tank is change. The corals will deal with consistently crappy parameters better than they deal with sometimes "perfect", sometimes "not so perfect parameters."
This advice more so applies to tanks with coral colonies. The larger the colony, the less agile they are on their feet so to speak. Frags are much more resilient.
I check all my parameters and they since to be fine I check phosphates with hannah checker and is showing 0 phosphates my nitrates are almost at 0 calcium 420,alkalinity 8.3 Magnesium 1280 Salinity 1.025 and I noticed some are turning brown and usually all my sps have a lot of polyp extension and my cali tort , and deep water acro they don't show any more polyp extension.
seth the wine guy
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I would say if all those parameters are staying constant, likes others have mentioned, it's a LACK of nutrients. Zero PO4 is not ideal in my experience. The happiest, most healthy, and colorful my tank ever was is when PO4 is around .03-.05. I think people over strip their tanks of nutrients. Corals like food, not poop. And people seems to confuse the two with their tank's nutrient levels. Both are labeled "nutrients" when having discussions. But there's a big difference between the two.
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Every day I broadcast feed a mix of oyster feast / coral frenzy / fuel / cyclopeeze.. 2-3 days a week I half dose acropower
My issue is I can't feed them enough. I've unintentionally created a ULNS so have taken GFO and filter socks offline. The days of 0 nitrate / 0 phosphates for SPS are gone. Trying to get my nitrates to 3-5
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This is for my frag tank btw.. I still run gfo and socks on my display as the colors are super vibrant and I'm probably overstocked with fish. Battling the import / export balance
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I don't think LEDs are a great supplement for MHs although Seth will disagree, his setup is different than most. That's a ton of light/par you have on the corals even if it looks good to your eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if you're roasting them.
seth the wine guy
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My corals were happiest when twice a week I would dump a mixture of peze, Seachem phyto, Seachem zoo, Reef Nutrition oyster egg and rotifers to the point that the tank looked milky.It literally looked like a blizzard. I would let it circulate for a half hour or so with the return pump off. I think I've tested PO4 at zero in my tank maybe once. I used to test PO4 twice weekly with a Hanna bench top. Now, about one a week since I don't feed like that anymore. My corals declined since stopping that regime. I don't have the time to do it and monitor it closely anymore.
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I think that's perfect. The problem IMO is the 12 hours of LEDs which are going to have a similar intensity to the MHs. Run a par meter midway down the tank with 4 T5s and you'll see about 150 par-ish. Do the same with LEDs and it will be way more than that. That's why most combo fixtures are either LED / T5 (power module hybrid) or a million different MH / T5 combos. It can be done with LEDs as a supplement but you have to consider their strength and run your schedule accordingly and probably direct the LEDs from a different angle for more of a "surrounding spotlight". Again, Seth can chime in on this as I like what he's doing, but it's a way different schedule than just about anyone else's I've seen.
Also, what bulbs are you running?
