New growth causing lack of color?
 

During the past 1-2 months my green hulk colony started to have a major growth spurt. I just recently notice the main beaches losing all it's color and is a lot thinner than the new growth. Is this because it's growing so fast and blocking all the lights from the branches below? How do I counter this? Take out clippers n cut off all the new growth or just let the thing be?

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...psydw0pk3z.jpg

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...psbve7e70o.jpg

The new growth will always be white until it colours up, i wouldn't go cutting the new growth as it grows it will all colour back up

No the new growth colours are amazing. Was talking about the main branches under it having no color.

Maybe the new growth is blocking some of the light of the bottom

i guess i can trim some of the top branches off... a lot of my other sps are losing color is it because my Cheap LEDS are losing its effectiveness after a year or so? or because i have phosphate? i hate how it takes months for a tank to finally look good and days for it to go to shiit

I've found with my higher-up SPS that too much light causes them to grow spindly/colorless
Maybe just back-off your lighting a tiny bit and see what happens

I bleached all mine 'cause my lights were too much for them with my light bio-load; not enough food in the water column

Just go slow
Nothing good happens fast

Don't make major changes, and keep a record of what you do so you can track what is going on

i noticed color lost when i moved my lights 4" higher and increased blues from 75% to 100% and whites from 50% to 75%.. i lowered it back to original height but kept the intensity at 100 and 75.. nothing is bleached just lost color and plain/brown

Phosphates also will hinder the sps coral color too some areore sonsitube Han others

I'd only guess that the light intensity has had an effect and you should stop making changes now
Watch your corals and if they continue to lose color, put your lights back where they were to start with, and then make changes slowly from there

Umm, what ??? "areore sonsitube Han others" :smile:

Wow lol " some are more sensitive than others" I know I never really seen my sps grow and color up good untill my p04 dropped down

Hahaha, I see it now but woulda never guessed it

Are your water params fixed now last month your calc was like 310 did you ever test your phosphate? Your mag was also super low.

My all is a stable 7. Cal still stuck around 310, I never been able to get it higher than that since I started my tank. Dunno why. Mag around 1200. I'm going to JL today to buy a phosphate test kit. I'm running one of those phosphate remover bags passive in sump in the same chamber as my carbon bag. Maybe the carbon is making it neutral? Should I run the phosphate bag in my filter sock instead? I was gonna order another led fixture today as well because I only have 1 16" fixture for my 4' tank this whole time. Also the tricoloured nana colony I got from you is starting to brown out the same time most of my other sps are as well. So I'm not sure of my lights are losing quality over time or not.

I would not buy any equipment fix your calcium problem.

Ok this is rly weird. So I just bought a sail feet phosphate test and my results was 0 and nitrate also at 0. So how come I'm getting so much long green hair algae blooming everywhere?

You'll get growth as the algae is consuming stuff and keeping your kits from detecting it

I'm currently fighting a nasty GHA outbreak after 2 years of no problems
It's just a part of reefing

I've cut my fish food back a bit and added more hermits and snails
I plan on plucking crap out this weekend along with some LR turkeybasting, and beyond that I'm not going to worry about it
I love my tank but have better things to do with my time

Got a pic of this algae?

From the pics corals look healthy and new growth is always gong to be brighter , it's keeping that bright is what's tough.

Agreed Raising your calcium would be beneficial

And fwiw some algae require very little nutrients and do quite well even when our low grade kits can't read them.

Here's a pic I just took of an area I haven't been able to reach and manually pluck yet. I've been manually trying to take out as much algae as I can. I currently have my API phosphate remover media bag In My filter sock and I also purchased rowaphos but if my reading is 0ppm of phosphate should I still add rowaphos or no? My tank has never looked so hideous with long hair algae and most sps browning out. Sometimes I don't even want to look at it.

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...pso8y5tvcl.jpg

I had the same issue when I started. SK8R wrote up a great post on RC explaining the relationship between alk, Ca, and Mg. From reading that post I only concentrated on getting my Mg stable first. Once it was around 1400, all my other parameters were easy to get in line.

None of that will help with your GHA, but thought I'd mention it if you wanted to read the thread and maybe help fix that little problem :)

I'm guessing if you have algea like that your po4 isn't zero what test kits are you using, most kits are very inaccurate at low po4 levels and are very hard to " tell what shade of off light blue is this stupid vial compaired to the paper" ,

I bet if you had a Hanna checker you would see the po4

Regardless I would still run the rowa and try to manually remove as much as you can and It should start to starve it out, manual removal is best at the start then work on starving it out and not giving it the nutrients it needs ---> via gfo/rowa and water changes

Good luck man it will come around

There looks to be a lack of flow in that corner , you can tell from the pics that detritus is clogging and building up on the rock , nutrients will getbtrapped in the ditrius mats feulng the algae above , I would turkey baste the areas and adjust it so theres more current in tht area. Manual remove what you can and keep on the po4 battle.

As for your calcium I agree raise your mg levels but get your calcium up at least to 400ppm , if what your adding isn't rasining then add more and log all doses and tests.

A log book is a beautiful thing until things get into a natural routine.

I have tons of detritus. I do turkey blast my live rocks daily. This is because I have way too many fist sized live rocks n everything just gets stuck underneath it. Does algae consume cal/alk/mag? I'm really considering in getting reactors to run carbon and rowophos to get rid off all my long hair algae.

Some Algae can consume some but the nuisance type that you have isn't consuming much. Coraline on the other hand consumes a fair bit.

Yes you should look at using the media in a reactor , results are better/efficient and faster and more bang for your buck. Use small amounts changed more often than large amounts changed less often , remember these arnt natural processes and misuse Could lead to bigger issues so go slow and small:)


The detritus should be removed using a syphon tube , blasting the rocks is good but all that detritus needs to be removed, another sign that flow could be better as well and maybe even filtration methods.

How much rowophos should I use for my 75g tank? I'm using 2 wp25 which is pretty strong but flow can't go under the mass amount of rocks I have. Ya I should try removing all the rocks and siphon the area. I have an euro reef rs135 skimmer and it's skimming pretty good

Yes your rock scape should allow for ample flow around so as not to trap ditrius as your seeing.

I'm not sure how much of rowaphos to use as I don't use that product anymore but see what their recommended dose is and cut it in half or more and just change it out more often. Again rowa is aggressive and should be used sparingly so as or to deprive the corals of po4 by too much.

Two wp25 is plenty of flow but you should try to arrange your rock in a way thay allows flow throughout the whole tank , size is on your side so should be easy to do.

If corals are healthy then I'd look at setting the tank up more efficiently as in the way of rock and flow , allowing better access to all areas and then start on nutrient export a bit more aggressively if you wish.

Yea I think I'm gonna do some aquascaping and make my fist sized rocks into a bunch of arcs. I just have way too many corals for my small 75g tank so it's hard glueing them down. Ok so what's better 2 TLF reactors for carbon and phosphate remover media or the BRS dual reactor? And rowaphos or brs gfo?

I was testing with a salifert for po4 and it always said 0, reefpilot tested my water with his Hanna checker and bingo! I had po4. I bought one and now test with it. You will have more success if you run your rowaphos in a reactor vs a bag in the sump. I run my ca at 440, alk at around 7-8, mag at 1350, TLF reactors work just fine and Rowaphos or BRS stuff are both good and work well for me, best of luck to you.

ok i just bought a brs reactor. Are there any of you guys out there that put both carbon and rowaphos in the same single reactor? If so how is it working out for you and what u put in first rowa or carbon.

Carbon/rowa
 

They can be ran in the same reactor, but the problem is carbon will exhaust faster than the rowaphos will.

agreed I run mine each in there own reactor.
I would use the BRS reactor for rowaphos and a TLF 150 for carbon.

Can't I just put rowaphos at the bottom then the foam pad then carbon n another foam pad so I can just change carbon only easier?

As long as the rowaphos can tumble at a slight boiling action, but the carbon should be packed tight between sponges so it does not tumble, I suppose it could be done that way, give it a try.

Just out of curiosity has any1 ever tried or heard of any1 using gfo reactor on outdoor ponds?