Coral Colours and Amino Acids

[Ron99]

Tank has been running since last May, was set up with established and cycled rock from other tanks so there was no cycle to speak of. Lighting runs 10.5 hours each day. Some corals have been in there since last may much of the others have been in 5 or 6 months. Salinity is stable as I run an ATO. Other parameters seem a fairly stable as well although I don't check every day. But they are similar when I do test. Flow is about 300gph through the sump and I have an MP40 running about 2/3 full power which gives plenty of water movement. Test kits are a mix of Elos and API. I have also tried some hagen test kits too for phosphate and ammonia/nitrate/nitrite. But all read zero or very close to it when I test so I don't think I have a major nutrient issue as I can't see getting false negatives all the time. I'm also not seeing any algae blooms; just the normal dusting on the glass that needs to be cleaned every few days.

I didn't think a cup of skimate per week was that much. I see others pulling that much in a few days.

As for bulbs I have 3 x actinics, 1 x fiji purple, 2 x 75.25 and 2 x 12,00K actinic white. Lorenzo, what kind of fish are the 5 you have? Some eat and poop more then others. I have 3 fairly small fish in a large tank so that is why I am thinking low biolad as a possible issue. I was reading these:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...ture/index.php

http://glassbox-design.com/2008/amin...-do-they-work/

[fishytime]

It could be your bulb choice....if the actinic bulbs you are running are a "true" or "pure" actinic then four out of your eight bulb spread are "color" bulbs...meaning they dont produce as much usable par as 10000-18000k bulbs...

as far as dosing amino acids goes...I am all for it....everything in the tank seemed to perk up when I started dosing it...

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by fishytime

as far as dosing amino acids goes...i am all for it....everything in the tank seemed to perk up when i started dosing it...

+1

[lorenz0]

Originally Posted by fishytime

It could be your bulb choice....if the actinic bulbs you are running are a "true" or "pure" actinic then four out of your eight bulb spread are "color" bulbs...meaning they dont produce as much usable par as 10000-18000k bulbs...

beat me to it. I agree with your bulb choices. i don't dose anything and my colors are still really good. Double check what type of actinics they are and if they are "pure" i would remove most to all of them. As for the fiji purple, take it out. Every combo i have run has always produced better color without the fiji in it.

I suggest aquascience bulbs to anyone. These preform on the same level as ati and give off great color. the KZ line is good as well but UVL and GE aren't fans in my books for SPS.

It sounds like your reef is stable, good flow but i just have a feeling it has something to do with your lighting.

btw, I used to only have 2 fish in my sps tank. If your worried about food for your sps dose some coral food.

[Ron99]

Well, even so I have 216 watts of 12,000K to 18,000K light about 4 to 4.5 inches from the surface of the water and the sps are all close to the top of the tank too so some are only 8 inches or less away from the lights. I don't believe it's a lighting issue. There should be plenty of PAR in the top third of my tank. I had to move some chalice and cyphastrea frags under some overhangs on the sand bed because they were getting to much light out in the open on the bottom.

I think I will try feeding the corals a bit more often. It's fairly sporadic right now. How often do you SPS masters feed and what is preferred? I have some coral frenzy and some micro-vert.

[simplycoral]

Originally Posted by Ron99

Well, even so I have 216 watts of 12,000K to 18,000K light about 4 to 4.5 inches from the surface of the water and the sps are all close to the top of the tank too so some are only 8 inches or less away from the lights. I don't believe it's a lighting issue. There should be plenty of PAR in the top third of my tank. I had to move some chalice and cyphastrea frags under some overhangs on the sand bed because they were getting to much light out in the open on the bottom.

I think I will try feeding the corals a bit more often. It's fairly sporadic right now. How often do you SPS masters feed and what is preferred? I have some coral frenzy and some micro-vert.

I personally would deal with the nutrient issue first before feeding anymore ..

[lorenz0]

any chance you can take a picture?

[buddyreefer]

don't want to sound rude, but i think you need to the advice given to you on this thread, feeding your corals more when they are brown is not going to give you the results you need, brown corals are usually a symptom of too high nutrients and sometimes not enough light, your test kits will not give you accurate readings because p04 gets locked up in things like algae giving false 0's. Coralife skimmer are imo not great skimmers, you might look at getting a more effecient skimmer and go from there.

[Ron99]

I'll try to get some pictures which will help as it is not just that they are all turning brown. Some have turned a bit brown, others have never coloured up and stayed a bit brown as they were when I got them and others are just faded (my red mille is more a peach/pale pink colour then the more intense red it was originally). Some have coloured up at the tips but the rest has stayed brown.

While I certainly want advice and opinions I am also trying to make sense of what is being said. I seriously doubt it is a low light issue with an 8 x 54 watt T5 fixture. High nutrients could be a cause but I'm not sure it fits with the overall picture. Zoas tend to like higher nutrient tanks but they are not doing particularly well either. Excessively high nutrients would show up with the test kits. The reason the test kits are seen to be inaccurate at low levels is because our eyes cannot pick out the very slight colour changes at the low levels, not to mention variations in the colour temperature and intensity of the ambient light people are testing under. You would need a sensitive colourimeter for real accurate results. The kits are fairly accurate but our eyes are not. So my levels are testing at zero or near enough I can't see a colour change. I do not have any algae blooms only cheato growing in my sump. If the cheato is sucking up nutrients such that they are immeasurable then the levels in the water are low. It is possible the coral are also sucking up some of the nutrients too and that is partly responsible for the lack of colour but I'm not feeding a ton with only 3 small fish. I tend to put the food in a little at a time with a pipette and only add a bit more when they have eaten what's floating around. The two cleaner shrimp, snails and hermit crabs hurry to snatch up what's left and the serpent star is out scavenging at night.

Sure the coralife skimmer isn't the best but it was a freebie as part of a package deal with other equipment and it is skimming a nice dark skimmate so it is taking stuff out of the water. A new skimmer isn't in the budget right now.

I do suspect my Alk may have been a bit unstable so I am keeping an eye on that right now. That may also have been the source of or contributed to the problem. But my reading does indicate that corals can fade and go brown from lack of feeding too as it looks like they need something like 20% of their nitrogen in the form of protein/amino acids. That's why I'm asking about feeding regimens for corals that work for others as I rarely feed anything for them.

[kien]

I don't feed my SPS corals anything other than Alk. and Calc. and they seem to be doing fine.