SPS coloration
 

Hey everybody.
I have just steers getting into SPS and had a few questions. I've had some mini colonies for about 4 months now but I can seem o get them to color up. I have seen plenty of growth and the polyps are extended every day but they won't seem to color up. I'm not dosing anything at the moment. They are under 250w halides.
Thanks in advanced.

Brett

Mine took almost a year before I got good coloring. I don't recall doing anything special, not dosing anything. They just started to color up, now the acro I thought was purple tips, is actually completely purple. As the same with a blue milli. I had a big hair algae outbreak and dosed vodka for a couple months after, that's when things started getting better.

Lampshade hit on an important fact there when he said "vodka dosing". Not the dosing part itself but what style of husbandry creates: a low nutrient system. Low nutrients is probably the number one factor is getting those nice colours to come out. With high nutrients the zooxanthellae algae in the coral flourishes; unfortunately this leads to brown corals. You essentially have to slowly lower the nutrients to get rid of the excess fat to see the beautiful body underneath. Now, I'm not sayin you have to do an ultra low nutrient system with biopellets, vodka, etc (those are like the atkin's diet for corals), just good nutrient removal. I have kept SPS successfully for 2 years with a half decent skimmer and 15% weekly water changes. This is a bit labour intensive and it could be better, but it works (I've gone for a more high tech system to make my life easier now).

The next big factor: stability. Corals can regulate the zooxanthellae levels in their bodies. If they are stressed, they will keep more algae in their bodies to stock up on "food" in preparation for what ever disturbance may come. To make the same analogy as before, think of your body: if you eat two big meals a day instead of 6 smaller meals a day (both totaling the same calorie count) you are going to get fat. This is because your body is seeing feast and famine rather that a constant supply of nutrients. The more stable your eating patterns, the less your body stocks up to prepare for those famines and your body runs leaners. Similar idea applies to corals. So the more stable you keep your system, the more likely the corals are going to lean out and keep less algae (and you won't have to starve them as much, so they will still be resilient in the event of a disturbance). Water quality, temperature, chemistry, etc need to stay stable. This is why the guys with big tank can grow SPS like weeds while the guys with small tanks (like me) have to struggle a bit more to keep things on track.

And finally, the big factor: time. If you have all of the above dialed in, just give it time. You can't expect to do a crash diet, run a few laps and expect to have a nice six-pack in a week. It takes time and dedication to reach that level; once you get there it is less work and you just have to maintain it. Same applies here; time and dedication will yield amazing results. You just have to be patient, relish in the small successes and keep working toward your goals until you get there.

couldn't have said it better

Great post Steve.

And I thought the trick was photoshop :redface:

+1

Thank a lot Steve. Your post helped me out. as far as vodka dosing goes how should I go about doing this. I have seen many people talking about it but have never read about how to do it

I personally like bio-pellets way better than vodka dosing.

When I did it I did one small cap, polar ice cap, every 2 days in a 150gal+50sump. That was too fast of a start. Its like a anti nitrate bomb, so shocks the system. after about a month I got up to a cap a day, but that was even a little heavy, so once everything was balanced I was at about half a cap a day(more like a cap every other day, I'm terrible at schedules). Every thing seemed happy, so I stopped and let my added bio balls pick up the slack. I'm thinking of starting again though, everything seemed happy.

I did this with a tfl150 of bio balls. Upgraded to the big reactor with more balls at the end. Thats why I stopped

Here's a good article on vodka dosing.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

After researching this, though, I went the bio pellet route instead. I am using the Vertex Pro-Bio Pellets using a Vertex UF-20 reactor.

Hmmm ive been vodka dosing for months now , but ive seen no improvement in my tank .Now i read all this info from you guys and find out the vodka is suposssed to go in the fish tank . I guess my headaches will go away now but reefkeeping is going to be way less fun.

Thank you guys. Good read. Helped alot

before you start dosing vodka, are your nitrates and phosphates high?

What ever you do, go slowly.

+1 to what Steve said.......and its a brand new tank Brett:wink:

Another approach is to remove all of your fish. :-)

Fish and any lps that likes to eat lots eh?

Oh y haha forgot about that. The tank has only been running for about a month and a half

No no you can keep on dosing, just add a tiny bit to your tank every time you dose yourself. 