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View Full Version : Acros are bland and pale :( Please help


Scoobysnack77
01/13/2014, 03:23 PM
Ive had quite a few acros in my tank for about 6 months now and i stopped adding them to my year old tank because the colors are nothing like the pics i saw online of them. They had more color when they arrived in the mail. Their growth rate has been pretty slow as well. Here is a glimpse into my system and the testing i did today. Please help me get the color back right now I'm running a 75 gallon tank with a 15 gallon sump which contains live rock, tons of chaeto algae and my in sump tunze protein skimmer. my lighting is a pair of 250watt metal halides (20k bulbs) with blue LED strips on them. for flow i have an vortex mp40 and an mp10 so the water is moving quite a bit. my test results for today were salinity 1.027, ALK 9.2, nitrate 0ppm, phosphate 0ppm, calcium 450, magnesium 1500 and potassium is at 400. I'm currently dosing alk,ca and mag with bubble magus dosing pump.Im also running gfo and carbon in a dual reactor. i feed the tank every other day with phytoplankton, oyster eggs, and oyster feast. and i feed my fish brine shrimp daily.

d2mini
01/13/2014, 03:30 PM
Lack of nutrients.
That is of course if your test kits are accurate and you really have 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate. It's actually better to have nitrate of 3-4ppm (or even higher) and phosphate of .03-.06ppm.
Your coral are probably starving.

Ditch the GFO. I had to do the same.

shellsea
01/13/2014, 03:45 PM
Check placement and light cycle. I had some frags lose color from giving them too much light, too quickly.

Scoobysnack77
01/13/2014, 03:52 PM
Well i tested for phosphate using a phosphate checker and got a zero reading. then i used the liquid cheap testing kit and got the same reading. I'm assuming i have some phosphates because i have a small hair algae problem. nothing too bad though. i just started using the gfo this week cuz the guy at the coral shop said i might have high phosphate and to start using it. I'm using carbon too

leveldrummer
01/13/2014, 03:55 PM
Adding fish and feeding the fish more will sometimes work. how many fish do you have in the tank?

Scoobysnack77
01/13/2014, 03:55 PM
As for lighting , my 250 watt fixtures (a pair) are on 6 hours a day. my blue led's are on and hour before the halides come on ,and are on during the 6 hour halide cycle and on and an hour after the metal halides shut off

Scoobysnack77
01/13/2014, 03:56 PM
i have a mystery wrasse, 1 goby, 1 royal gramma, and 1 damsel.

d2mini
01/13/2014, 03:59 PM
Yeah, you can add a lot more fish. Fish poop is free coral food.
Preferably something that likes to munch on algae. ;)

Scoobysnack77
01/13/2014, 04:01 PM
i wanted to get a powder blue or purple tang but with a 75 gallon tank I'm worried they won't be happy. i was also thinking of doin 3 bartlett anthias but i don't kno if they eat algae?