Not happy with some of my SPS colours - possible reasons/remedies?

[sahin]

I have a 28G Nanocube, with the following equipment:

150w MH – Phoenix 14K bulb
16x Cree Royal Blue LED’s @ 700mA
Tunze Osmolator Auto top off
Vortech MP10

Parameters are:
Alk: 7.5dKH, CA: 390ppm, pH: 7.9-8.2, Mg: unknown but I do 20% water changes weekly so don’t test for it, Temp:79-80, nitrates: 0ppm (used to be 25ppm) and phophates: 0ppm (used to be 0.5ppm, now use GFO)

I dose C-Balance and Kalk (later via Osmolator).

I have one Acro nana which now has deep purple tips as well as three differant green coloured SPS (dont know names).


Other than these, the others (about 10 other frags) dont have good colours and are either brown or very dull.



Is it possible that as frags, corals wont exhibit thier best colours? I read somewhere that once frags mature into colonies thier colours are better. Not sure how true this is.


The oldest frag is from mid Feb, others are a little newer.


Am I being too impatient and should I wait say 6 months more to see how things proceed?


Any ideas/tips/suggestions on how I can improve my coral colours or rather improve some aspect of my setup to get better colours?


Many thanks.

[29reef]

Buy a chiller and temp controller for the tank, that will help. Also get on a regular dosing, testing, and water change schedule. Then wait 6-12 months. You should have a pretty cool nano by then.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by 29reef

Buy a chiller and temp controller for the tank, that will help. Also get on a regular dosing, testing, and water change schedule. Then wait 6-12 months. You should have a pretty cool nano by then.

I do have a temp controller and fans. I consider 79-80'F to be fine. I do 20% water changes EVERY week and dose C-Balance twice a day.

[Gondore]

How long ago were you phosphates at 0.5?

[sahin]

Originally Posted by Gondore

How long ago were you phosphates at 0.5?

8 weeks ago. I was under the impression 8 weeks of very low phosphates is enough for the SPS to colour up.

[Gondore]

The time required for them to color up from high nutrients can be anywhere from a week to six months. I have heard of a few never coloring back up. I would probably give them at least another month or two. Have you noticed any better coloration from your corals after lowering your phosphates?

[bigal20874]

+1, some even takes up to 6 months to see the color change.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by Gondore

The time required for them to color up from high nutrients can be anywhere from a week to six months. I have heard of a few never coloring back up. I would probably give them at least another month or two. Have you noticed any better coloration from your corals after lowering your phosphates?

Yes, my fav acro is the acro nana with purple tips. From the LFS only a minimum part of the tip was purple. It then went alomst brown. When the phosphates were reduced to unreadable by my test kit that frag soon coloured up and is now better coloured than when I first got it.

[stryker]

I would bump alk up a bit and make sure flow is adequate. do you run a skimmer? are you seeing any growth. usually the new growth on sps is where the vibrant color is.

[sahin]

Originally Posted by stryker

I would bump alk up a bit and make sure flow is adequate. do you run a skimmer? are you seeing any growth. usually the new growth on sps is where the vibrant color is.

I am going to bump my alk slowly to 8dKH and see what happens. I am seeing growth. In the past few days I have started to see a growth spurt on a few of the frags. One of them I could see a mm or so of growth each day...ie where there was a bluey browny tip is now a sky blue tip with a few mm's of growth in a few days.

I do run a skimmer, though it is the stock JBJ skimmer, I am getting decent skimmate out of it and as far as I can tell, combined with GFO, skimming, 20% water changes each week and at least the purple and green colours in my corals being there, with no nuisance algae, I can safely assume my water quality is good enough.

So, not too bad, I just expect better I guess and to be honest I am still learning and am hungry for tips/suggestions etc for achieving great SPS coloration.

I hope to have a nano tank of the month in a couple of years time and so willing to put in the time and effort now to achieve that.

[plyle02]

Do you dose alk and ca everyday? Have you considered 2 part and automation of it via peralstatic pump? Doing this allows many small doses daily to keep params locked in without any swings, dosing once per day gives too much of a swing in a smaller system, IMO... I choose a salt that locks me in at desired alk and ca, and then dose to acheive those params consistently. This allows me to do water changes without affecting my dosing schedule. Do that, keep your temp stable, keep nutrients relatively low, and you should see color immediately improve. Just a few thoughts to offer.