Fadded Corals

[ajm-vfr]

Hi All

I am having a small problem.

I have a mixed reef and I am having some color fading questions. My corals are healthy and growing but the colors are faded. It's almost across the boards softs, sps, lps, and even my clam to a degree.

The tank is a 125 gallon with 50 gallons in the sump. Ammonia 0, nitrate 0, nitrate 0, ph 8.4, dkh 11.4, calcium 390, salinity 1.025,and not detectable phosphates.

I have 4 vho lights for a total of 640 watts. 2 lights burn for 12 hours and the other 2 burn for 9 hours. Those 2 laps times directly overlapped with a total photo period for 12 hours.

I have an aquac ev180 protein skimmer. A cup of skim ever 3 days.

Here is a before picture
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/92688small_before.JPG

Here is a picture 7 months later
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/92688small_after.JPG

You can clearly see that the coral has faded, but looks health and is growing.

Does anybody have any ideas
Thanks

[ajm-vfr]

Sorry I forgot a couple things.

The temperature is 80F.

I am using instant ocean salt. Water changes are 30 gallons every 4 weeks.

I forgot to add some info about the lights. Each of the ballast drives a URI blue actinic and a 50/50. I just chanced this configuration 2 months ago. I use to run an actinic blue and the 50/50 on the long cycle and 2 aquasuns on the shorter cycle. I have not noticed a difference yet.

The tank is 1 year old. I just started dosing with iodine and strontium, but that is only within the last 2 weeks. If it is going to make any difference it has not yet.

[pixburg-reefer]

Well your calcium is a little low, try to get it around 450 because that's what the corals need to build more skeleton. I think it's because of your lighting. That only gives you a little over 5 watts per gallon and in a 125, I'm not sure of the dementions, but VHO probably isn't intense enough to give the corals the color you want. Maybe you could add a few more bulbs of VHO? It is very good lighting, I have a VHO only reef my self. But I do not think that the wattage or intensity is enough to give you the color you want. The color is given off by the zooanthallae, and if it can't collect enough light for the coral the color is lighter. Typically the color is brighter if the zooanthallae can collect ample light. Do you feed your corals? That may help a lot because what the coral can take in from feeding can replace a bit of the light the zooanthallae gathers, so the colors will improve including the growth.

Kelly