Zoa colors fading from carbon dosing
 

So my nitrates hit 20, algae started showing up so I thought I'd carbon dose. I use NOPOX from red sea and have been doing so for over 2 months. Good new, my nitrate fell to 5, bad news, my zoa's all faded in color.

Anyone know why this would be? Have suggestions to color them back up? Nothing else in my tank has changed other than the carbon dosing and the fading started right after I started the dosing.

Are my nitrates and phosphates just too low now? Do zoa's react to the carbon?

I know some will say "stop carbon dosing" but my sps are lovin it and my algae is totally gone so I'm liking the dosing as I feed heavily and have big fish.

Thoughts?

Try spot feeding the zoas for a bit and see if it improves, could be the low nutrients causing it

Best zoa food? Polyp lab any good? Coral Frenzy?

This is a common issue with using carbon

I would continue to dose and if your nitrates and phosphates get quite low then you can increase feeding (slowly)

Any way to combat the color loss?

Since I started carbon dosing I have the same issue, my palys do great but the zoas not so much, they are actually getting better now after a few weeks but they don't use to look like how they use too. My sps do great tho .


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Ive been carbon dosing for quite some time and don't seem to have this issue... I dose fuel aswell as Tropic Marin Part C so maybe that has something to do with it?

The curse of a mix reef sps/lps/softies all like the water slightly different it would seem. It is hard to keep them all perfect. One of them is always a little grumpy with the conditions.

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Yeh. Its the common issue with mixed reef. Good for some, bad for others.

maybe DAVEJ can chime in on this. I know he vinegar doses and he has the most vibrant zoas and palys.

What lighting does Dave use ?

ATI T-5 and LED strip supplement

Zoa colors fading from carbon dosing
 

Yup, I restarted dosing vinegar after giving up on bio pellets.

I have had no issues with my color on my zoas.

I dose acropower as well, maybe that is helping?

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...c9df7f3f5a.jpg

We have literally the same collection of Zoa's. I wonder if its the NOPOX vs Vinegar. NOPOX is a different compound of carbon. I'm thinking of not using NOPOX and switching to vinegar anyway. Vinegar is 2 bucks, NOPOX is 30...

Using a 6 bulb dimmable ATI with 4 blue plus, 1 coral plus and one giessman full actinic. As per your recommendation Jess. :)
Also have a reefbrite XHO full actinic as well.

Nice collection davej... They look great


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I use biofuel by brightwell, don't know if depends on what source of carbon you use, eventually mine are getting better but also lost some of them, the only thing I switched in the last few months was only the carbon dosing.
Actually since I took the kessil down and going all t5 they are doing better, but probably for some of them is a bit late.



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Yes I really wanted to love my radions. But alas Zoas didn't. Lol
Doing much better under t5's.