Coloring up SPS

[jhale]

Right now, I'm running my DSB tank kind of like the BB method. High flow, over skimming, heavy fish load, nutrient addition, but aggressive nutrient removal. (DSB method advises you severely limit any additions of nutrients and have very limited fish) Seems to be working for me at the moment.

chris what were your nitrates before you switched to an aggressive maintenance schedule?

with my past BB I had good color, but the No3 was very high.
now I lowered the fish load, and added a fuge with a dsb and a ton of macros. I can't detect No3 at all. the color is looking about the same and there is way less algae growing on the glass. I also can't detect any Po4, but that's just using a seachem kit.

so for my tank I think the macros are using up whatever nutrients are left over. I'm find it odd that the colors looked good in both high and low nutrient water in my tank. I know the tank is much healthier now, and the corals are growing faster.

 

[loismustdie]

chris what were your nitrates before you switched to an aggressive maintenance schedule?

according to my salifert kit, 100 ppm, according to Rich's salifert kit, 50 ppm and according to a kit mike was using, somewhere between 40 and 50 ppm. I dumped all of the rocks out of my sump and replaced the rock with filter socks. I removed my refugium. I felt it was building and dumping more nutrients than my mass of cheato could take up. I now keep my sump in pristine condition, vacuuming all detritus off of the bottom and changing filter socks every 2 days. My nitrates now hold steady just below 10 according to a Lamotte kit and backed up by a seachem kit even though I've been using a much more agressive night time feeding approach.

with my past BB I had good color, but the No3 was very high.
now I lowered the fish load, and added a fuge with a dsb and a ton of macros. I can't detect No3 at all. the color is looking about the same and there is way less algae growing on the glass. I also can't detect any Po4, but that's just using a seachem kit.

Jon, I've been putting a lot of thought into it and if I were to start another tank, it would be BB in the main dispaly with a remote (very large) DSB with a couple of tunze's in it for high flow.
BTW, even when both my PO4 and NO3 were at their peaks, my rock is clean and I only had to scrape the surface slime off of my front glass every few days.

so for my tank I think the macros are using up whatever nutrients are left over.

I personally disagree with this. I don't think macro takes in anywhere near the nutrients we think they do. With a set up like mine, I think they did more harm than good. With your set-up, I would say, they're helping, but I would attribute you lower NO3 to the lower fish load, remote DSB along with other possible husbandry.
As for the colors being the same... I have no idea. Mine looked bad when the nutrients were high. So much so that on a few of them, the main body remained brown, but the new growth would show crazy color. I don't get it. I can't answer it.
What role does lights play in all of this? I know Randy was just slinging a little joke in there with the photoshop thing, but how much different is that then the Japanese technique of putting different color bulbs over certain corals to make them appear a color they are not?
What do you guys think of getting together some day... just a few, 5 to 7 guys and look at each others tanks, compare colors in person (computer pics very rarely do justice for a man's tank), discussing set-up and all additives and try to find some common denominators. I've been doing this with Mike (slamajama) lately and now I'm starting to hold some of his blues. BTW, as far as colors go, Mike is very high on my list.
I'm not good enough at this to really give solid answers, just assumptions.

 

[jhale]

I heard Mikes the man on top of the color charts now

I suppose having few fish in my tank compared to the giant
fish load before would have something to do with the low
nutrients. funny thing is Mike has all those big fish now, haha.
I'm guessing the BK might have something to do with his color then.

I feel lucky to have color at all now. after dipping with the tmpcc
all my coral turned brown. I had a brown green slimer, that was
depressing. I saw color begin to return after a month. now it's
mostly back to normal. There is one hold out brown miagi colony.
I tried giving it tons of light, now i'm going to try less light.

I'm still a bit scared to start dosing the amino acids some people are experimenting with. I remember reading some threads on RC about reefers in Europe using all kinds of crazy stuff.

 

[jackson6745]

I tried AA and all it did was make my skimmer go nuts. I didn't see any color changes from it at all. One of the most easy and most effect color changers IMO would be photoperiod length. What I have observed is that in a low nutrient tank, a short photoperiod will really help you get those deeper colors that you would see in a higher nutrient reef. For example, in my 65gal DSB reef that was setup for 2 1/2 years, I only lost 1 acro (wild colony). For the last 8 months it was setup my MH potoperiod was only 2-3hrs per day. For the last 8 months this tank was setup, I didn't have any fish and I didn't feed the tank at all.
When I started my BB 120G I also started my photoperiod very short since the corals were used to it, but as I added more fish in my tank I found the need to increase my PP to lighten up the colors a little. IME Deep colors can quickly turn to brown if the nutrient level spikes a bit.
It is easier to lighten up a brown coral rather than trying to darken up a faded/tan looking coral IME so this is why I tend to lean toward keeping deep colors + I think deeper colors look better too

 

[loismustdie]

I think the fish swimming around and through the coral is very important... look at natural reefs. He can get away with the addition of a lot of nutrients when he's got removal like that. That's why I'm going with the Dialyseas and I'm building the crazy skimmer. Jon, his blue's and purple's are amazing.
I've dipped in TMPC too during the big scare... no changes in color or PE.
I'd worry about the amino acid thing too. I'm using the same thing, but dose much less with much more water volume, so I've gotten through with no problems.
In agreement with rich, the AA makes my skimmer go nuts too. I'm not sure what it did for my colors since I feel most of my good results came from the lower nutrients.

 

[Doc Jerm]

Hmmmmmm...Very interesting thread!

Doc

 

[jackson6745]

Doc I know you can add to this thread. I am very interested in hearing your thoughts.

 

[spykes]

From the few years of observation through many coral mission is that corals need to be fed inorder to maintain growth. But when you feed your corals the color darkens and some larger thicker branched acros will not color up. There are few tank of the months that use the blue coral method, the DT oyster eggs. They come out with the dark higher nutrients color. They also have higher photoperiods to compensate for the lack of water quality.

After zeovit came out, every coral turned pastel colored through lower nutrient and selective bacteria feedings. I do believe we can control the color of the coral, but what i've notice with many zeo tank was that thier growth became thin. The corals are lessable to adjust to maintain that color in a non zeovit tank.

my opinions of coloring up acropora remain it is controlable. Just which type of color do you perfer.

 

[jackson6745]

Dave, I do agree with you but another thing that I have noticed is when you have those deep rich colors you are putting a lot of nutrients into your reef. If you are mainly relying on your skimmer, and for some reason or another it doesn't perform well, you run the risk of a Po4 spike which will cause some STN/RTN (also a lot of browning)
In the past, as you know, I had a low nutient starved reef with those pastel colors. Growth and survival rate was awesome!!! I only lost 1 acro in 2 1/2 years which was a wild stylophora colony
Now, I am trying to get myself in the middle somewhere. I can live without thos deep rich colors but I don't want those faded pastel colors. My thinking behind this is that I can benifit from the growth and longevity of the lower nutient reef, but have somewhat deeper color from a moderate feeding/bioload. We'll see???

 

[DRZL]

Color changes in SPS due to Lighting Spectrum.

The color spectrum plays an important role in coral coloration. Different kelvin bulbs will change the way corals color up. Certain sps are from different levels of the reef (deepwater acros, shallow fringe reef sps and so on). They are used to differnet spectrums from the sun due to the saturation of light through water. But different wattages of the same kelvin bulb will give you different results. A 175W 20k bulb has a different PAR rating than a 1000W 20k bulbs. Here is where intensity comes in.


Kasei

Just wanted to add this Tyree article about spectrums and the lack of which are present in most bulbs and ways to supplement correctly. Lighting is one of those complicated subjects I feel everyone is tweaking, and unless your filthy rich or live in Japan, having 12 different MH colors over one tank is not really relevant

Steve Tyree
Stony Coral Pigments, Algae Pigments and Captive Lighting​

http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/s_tyree_060202.html

 

[ATJ]

Those that know me know how much I hate the terms "SPS" and "LPS". Partly because they are pretty meaningless, but mostly because of all the generalisations that are often present in sentences containing one or both terms.

So called "SPS" are found over a wide range of depths, not just in shallow water/high light. Paradoxically, corals with smaller polyps are more dependent on light for energy and this has led to them being better able to acclimatise to varying conditions of light, including low light. For example, Stylophora pistillata probably has the widest vertical distribution of any coral living in conditions spread over 2 orders of magnitude of lighting.

Here are some photographs from my dives on the reef showing the "SPS" corals at depth:

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/Trevor-Jones/Dive2003918Admiralty_Ancho.html
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/Trevor-Jones/Dive20039211North_Horn.html
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/Trevor-Jones/Dive200682110Admiralty_Anc.html

Some of the colonies at 20 to 30 metres depth are quite colourful, despite the fact that there is less than 20% surface irradiation at these depths. This suggest to me that intensity isn't the only factor in colouration - and may not be much of a factor at all.

One of my tanks is only lit by four 36/40W and I've had some very colourful corals:

Note these are the actual colours and there was no manipulation of the colours in post processing.

 

[2Sunny]

Wow!

Andrew,

I am ecstatic to have stumbled across your post and your website. I am sorry to say I had never picked up on your Reefkeeping articles previously, but I will look for them now. All I can say is thank-you for taking the time and effort to share all those underwater photographs. Your site is a wealth of visual information for those interested in seeing coral in their natural surroundings.

Thanks again for sharing!


Joe

As for the true topic of this thread forgive me if this 2 bit advice has been said before (I admit I did not read through the whole thread), but for me I found when I picked a system I admired and tried to mimic it, lo and behold I was blessed with colorful corals just like in the tank I was mimicing . . .

 

[duuce25]

I agree that as little you can mess with your tank the better.I often will see my sps go thru changes day by day.I also think lighting is very important as i have seen the same coral from my tank in 3 different tanks with 3 different looks to the coral sometimes unrecognizable.

 

[jhale]

bump, for a still interesting topic.

I've lowered my po4 still, and changed all my MH bulbs about 2 months ago, that combo has given me some colorful corals.

 

[Pedro]

What's your hanna testing at right now?

 

[Tonyscoots84]

my colors are really looking great as well after drastically lowering my phosphates from .4 to .07 tested with a hanna meter... and im still not done lowering them yet...

 

[tosiek]

whats the price on the hanna meter?

as per coloring up sps. Two of my sps colonies started to color up recently in the past month. Here is one that went from white to brown and is now turning a deep purple and just started to turn baby blue at the tips closest to the light. The other went from brown and coloring up like the purple bonsai =0)

Stopped overfeeding, started to skim a little dryer, stopped adding stupid things that raised my Po4 and raised my flow alot. Showing no reading on my Po4 test kit but i'm sure some is still there (instant ocean test kit i think). Also have been using the Fauna marine stuff and so far am liking it although i dunno what its doing :smash:.

 

[gnatp2]

so jealous.

 

[spskibitzer]

I still believe that one of the best things you can do for your system than rely on the latest bells and whistles is to do frequent water changes. Sure skimmers are great for polishing the water and lowering nutrients but at the same time they strip the water column of micro fauna and plankton which is beneficial to our aquariums ecosystem. We all get caught up in the latest gadgets and try to mimic the latest fads in reef keeping when we should really be falling back on basics IME

1) Lighting

2) Flow

3) good husbandry

 

[NYreefNoob]

sps

ok after reading all of this ill put in my 2 cent's. i have horribly husbandry compared to most. my tank total water volume is about 70g. i constantly have hand's in my tank. and im a smoker. i run phos and carbon reactor a asm 3 skimmer modded. 6 36" t5's lights are approx 12" above corals i 2 part evs dose. i have way to many fish in my tank. i overfeed. and i only do a 5g water change a week. i have a water turn over of about 2300gph andi am getting great growth rates and pretty good color. only thing that color isnt as dark as it was is my purple nana. all same equip and before i started 2 part dosing i couldnt hardly keep any sps. do my sps look as good color wise as the tank they came from ? no they dont. or atleast on the bluish and purple stuff, but everything else does. this is a mixed reef. :scratchch