better sps color at lower level alk and calcium

[Chicago]

ok.. so came home after a week away on vacation and find my frags are looking very colorful. thing is my alk is like 7.89 and my calcium is only 290. anyone else notice better color at lower levels?

[Tweaked]

ok.. so came home after a week away on vacation and find my frags are looking very colorful. thing is my alk is like 7.89 and my calcium is only 290. anyone else notice better color at lower levels?

Dropping my alk and ca was the best thing I did.. But my po4 and no3 were low as well.

[chopper320]

I recently had a drop in alk from 9.6 to 8.3 and my sps colors have never been better. I think I'm just going to keep it around that level.

[Tweaked]

Our tanks are much lower in nutrients these days due to equipment compared to the tanks of yester years. Jmo, but we strip them for color under blue light and need alk around 7-8.

[JPMagyar]

My daughter's 38 gallon has the nicest piece of Ice Fire Echinata I have ever seen and she almost never remembers to put in the 2 part solution so the tank stays closer to 6 on the alk and 375 on the calcium. Her room does get a lot of ambient sunlight so I have been hesitant to draw any conclusions. Bottom line though, her corals all look incredible and the alk and calcium are always low so clearly there's more to coral coloration than supplements.

[leveldrummer]

correct me if im wrong, but alk and cal are mainly for growth right? as long as the parameters are stable, you can still have healthy happy corals, they just wont grow very quickly.

[jroovers]

correct me if im wrong, but alk and cal are mainly for growth right? as long as the parameters are stable, you can still have healthy happy corals, they just wont grow very quickly.

I agree on this point to an extent. Growth may start to be limited at lower Alk and Ca levels, but colour stays ok. That said, my target for Ca is 420 ppm and I rarely am at that after having dosed a gallon of two part, and I typically still see good growth even when it is in the lower 300s. I think nutrient balance and lighting are more of the determining factor in coral colour.

[Chicago]

yes and no.. low alk and low calcium can cause other problems..

[Oldude]

In my experience I think you need to be careful how low you let the parameters get, they can do fine for a while but if you let things get too low you may be in trouble. I have a lot of sps in my tanks as well as clams & heavy coraline so the ca & alk get used up pretty quickly. Long story short - keep an eye on things and see what the consumption rate is and compensate accordingly.

[fishguy597]

I have been targeting my tank for alk to be 8 for a while. That's where my colors are basically at there best. The weird thing is they get even better color when the alk starts to drop. That's when I test and adjust my cal reactor.

[Chicago]

what happens if calcium gets to low.. we know the corals do not grow as fast but what are the other issues.