Salinity and coral colors?

[jdezek]

I've been to other people's house and seen there tanks and have noticed there corals seem to have more colors then mine. Question I have is if you have lower salinity will that effect the colors. I have the cheep swing arm salinity checker and by that I run about 1.024-1.025 when I would get my water from LFS it would read about 1.028 so I'm not so sure my checker is right. All my reading are in normal range, and the others are using same salt mix. That's why I'm asking if salinity can effect corals color?

[gchaney]

do any of your friends or LFS have a refractometer you could compare your swing arm to. usually if you can find out how much it is off it will generally always be off that much. they may not be perfectly calibrated but the swing arms tend to be constant. As far as color im not sure.

[-MillerTime-]

I believe color is related to multiple things. The main thing is you want their environment to be in check and not fluctuate. That means salinity, Alk, Ca should all try to be at a consistant level. Then lighting plays an important role in the color as well as food. I noticed my corals were dull after putting them in my tank from a friends. I was dosing Calcium manually, but once I switch to an automatic dosing system they really colored up. I always had an auto top off system to maintain salinity so I will tell you keeping things in proper balance will help.

[tmz]

Salinity can effect coral health. They are isotonic animals; their internal specific gravity is strongly dependent upon the specific gravity of the water around them. In that sense along with numerous other things ,poor salinity can effect color as stressed corals usually don't color well.

[7hogwarts]

Trace elements also affect coral coloration. Potassium, Iron, Iodine, etc. RedSea makes test kits for these elements.

[bertoni]

Color is a complicated question. Lighting and genetics are important, as is nutrition. If the salinity is 1.028, I'd probably lower it a bit to1.026 or so, but I doubt it'd affect coloration much.

[7hogwarts]

I agree there is more than just nutrient levels. Lighting is also extremely important. Nutrition, it would seem, would still be based on the element levels within the food.