can we enhance frogspawn/hammer/torch coloration with lighting? feeding?

[homegrowncichlid]

Hi,
Just picked up a gold and a green frogspawn recently, both at the entry level pricing and are probably the most commonly available types.
Both of these, have lighter colored tips and a nondescript darker tentacle coloration.
The gold tipped one is really a brownish LPS with lighter colored tips under normal lighting. Under actinic only, the gold pops out, but nothing I would say WOW at. Is it goldish, orangeish or a bluish pinkish? I couldn't say.
The green tipped one is also a brownish LPS with lighter colored tips under normal lighting, Under actinic only, the green tips pop somewhat and the body also shows a greenish hue. Again nothing spectacular.

What can I do to enhance these colors for LPS?
My experience with SPS is that its all in the mix of 420, 450 and 470 LED ratio, and to get that extra pop, add more 420 and the SPS corals will develop that sunscreen coloration in the tips. Adding an extra stunner light strip of 450 will also enhance viewing pleasure.

Both the frogspawns are likely wild sourced.
Thanks in advance.

 

[ZANYMASTER]

Try Reef Roids.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

I'm curious, how did all these exotic torches develop, with their super bright oranges, yellows and greens? I'm assuming they all started plain, and the brightest and more colorful, where collected, then individuals frags (showing the most promise) where then cut, and propagated, repeat a few times, fragging the brightest head, over and over and over time, we have the $100+ priced heads we see now?

or was there just some lucky diver who saw it already bright and colorful, and every single daughter was fragged from that first brightly colored one?

Or perhaps they are engrafted (either naturally or not) GMOs?

 

[Czynot]

torch color dont vary much, unless it is bleached from the LFS. Feeding will increase the growth.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

I've been growing some plain wild frog spawn and hammers and I can see color developing, just like in SPS. Color contrast is up, richer saturation. Where the frog spawn flesh was a translucent light brown (very blah), green is filling it in. Tips that were just light white/tan, is now developing yellow/pink.
For a green frog spawn, the green tips are developing white, which then floursesce blue under actinics, giving it a very bicolor feel.
A plain yellow hammer, has developed gold tips and very dark black opaque stalks.
An other gold hammer has filled in richly, the hammers filling in so much, I can't actually see the stalks. They may have looked the same when I got them, but they look like different species, based the tentacles.
All this was with feeding ground up pellets twice a week and lighting.

I'm mildly surprised.

 

[MIKE NY]

All my Euphyillia benefit from their weekly target feed and whatever they catch that floats by from the tank. They also, like most coral, look better under actinic lighting..
My torch garden...

this one is too big for the garden and is my center piece...

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[ZANYMASTER]

What do you guys target feed your torches? I use Reef Roids.

 

[IYun]

torch color dont vary much, unless it is bleached from the LFS. Feeding will increase the growth.

Anything available for sale?

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Zanymaster, I use a mortar and pestle, to grind up New Life Spectrum, 2 or 3 times a week.
Iyun, this general discussion thread is for sharing information about enhancing coloration.

 

[MIKE NY]

I make a paste, just liquidy enough to use a 10ml syringe, of Reef roids, Reef Blizzard L and Benepets only being target fed once a week.


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[piranhapat]

Looking good Mike. Seems Torches are very popular these days. Price on these Gold, dragon soul, NY Knicks are $200 to $600. Crazy

 

[MIKE NY]

Thanks Pat ...I had a lot more Euphyllia back in the day before the SPS bug hit me. I even had an Aussi gold torch, that looked like the 24k, with about 20-25 heads that even spawned for me....who knew.


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[homegrowncichlid]

OK, lots to think about, here I post a current screen print from Ebay for the following 4 corals. They all look great, but what is the actual color, either under white or actinics.
So for this first one, looks great in actinics, purple all over, but under white, are we just looking at lighter colored tips on tan/brown? what is the base color of this?
The second one is easy to tell, the same old brown/tans but under white light.
Opinions?

 

[Payedjay]

No they could only grow faster and brighter I never seen a torch or any Euphyllia completely change color only sps can do that

 

[MIKE NY]

I never seen an Euphyillia completely change color either, but lighting, nutrients etc...can change their appearance. Here is an example..my gold hammer colony...In the second pic it was moved to better lighting, flow and more food floating by...the pics are about 8 months apart

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[homegrowncichlid]

ah, color enrichment.
We can all see the color of the tips, could be a white, tan or brown, any where in between the spectrum. The base is much harder to predict. I had no way of knowing that the tan would change to black on my gold hammer. 2 of the basic frogspawn that I have which are light tan with lighter color tips, is developing a greenish stalk color, where as the other one, the rose gold, which I got off of ebay, was completely translucent, no color whatsoever aside from the tan tips. They start of virtually the same, but I couldn't have predicted the green base, or what ever color the rose gold will become. As for the 2 pick hammers, one is more violet, and one is more pink, 2 different shades, though they looked alike at the shop.
If there was an orange frogspawn, I'd jump on that like white or rice, however, I think ebay is a bit deceiving.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Since my last post on may 29th, a yellow hammer has just changed colors again.
Just an update, it was a wild yellow tipped hammer, with lighter colored tentacles. It then became a bright yellow hammer with black tentacles, as previously stated. Then the yellow started to fade out as black pigmentation moved into the tips. (Bad for me, since now the coral isnt so bright anymore.) Currently the yellow is no longer yellow, it has changed and is blueish. I also have another yellow hammer, which allows me to compare the two. Based on these oberservations, LPS hammer colors are in a constant state of flux, until they get to their final coloration. If only there was a way I could capture all this with photography, but the changes don't appear though the orange filter.

 

[seldin]

When a tank is healthy, corals do better. Obvious.

Using my LED lighting, I can see many variations on coral color depending on settings for white and color leds. So just suggesting that maybe with LED lighting you may get your corals to look better by changing settings.

I am not a photographer, but I notice that pictures also change dramatically depending on LED settings.