SPS Growing but color is washed out, Need help!

[P3FE]

So my SPS are driving me crazy! I've been getting good growth but the colors have washed out over time and I don't know what else to do. My parameters are in check and everything else in the tank is doing fine. At this point I'm wondering if to much light is the issue, I have a single radion gen2 running for 12 hours a day with an 85% pick at 18k for four hours. I have checked everything and don't understand what's going on. Maybe you guys can shed some light on the issue. I have included some picks, of an 6 month lapse of some of the frags, you will be able to see what I'm talking about. Here's more info about the tank.

24x24x24 60 gallon cube
Alk-9.0
Cal-450
Mag-1350
Nitrate-0
PO4-.02

There's only 4 fish in the tank, pair of clowns, yellow hog, and long nose hawkfish. I don't feed any corals, just the fish. I don't dose anything, but I did try Acropower for a few months and never notice any difference other than a cyano outbreak that is on the way out of my tank. I hope someone can shine a light on this issue, thanks for your help.

 

[3Twinklets]

Try cutting your light schedule to 8 hours a day.I would also lower it to 80% or lower. I also think you may be blasting them with a little to much light
I would raise the calcium a bit.

 

[Keithcorals]

More nitrate

 

[Keithcorals]

The calcium and lighting should be fine where they are. Phosphate is ok but with few fish and not detectable nitrate your problem more than likely is low nutrients. Feeding more may help or the direct approach would be to just add phosphate and nitrate. It not the popular way to go just yet but more and more people are dosing phosphate or nitrate and I've yet to see anything other that the desired results from doing so myself

 

[Keithcorals]

If it helps this is my t5 light tank but it's being blasted with light. I run my blues for 12hrs a day and all lights on in the middle of the day for 8. I hade the same problem before increasing nutrients

 

[P3FE]

If it helps this is my t5 light tank but it's being blasted with light. I run my blues for 12hrs a day and all lights on in the middle of the day for 8. I hade the same problem before increasing nutrients

Beautiful tank! I though about the nutrient issue before but all the LPS and softies in the tank are doing well and my acans are poping new heads like crazy. I wonder if the LPS are just beating the SPS at the nutrient consumption game. I turned off my skimmer five says ago to see if it makes a difference. Thanks for the reply

 

[Keithcorals]

Beautiful tank! I though about the nutrient issue before but all the LPS and softies in the tank are doing well and my acans are poping new heads like crazy. I wonder if the LPS are just beating the SPS at the nutrient consumption game. I turned off my skimmer five says ago to see if it makes a difference. Thanks for the reply

Not running the skimmer may help or you could do what I do. I have my skimmer on a timer so it only runs while the lights are off this helps polish the water but also helps keep the pH more stable. I feed when the lights go on so the fish and coral have a good amount of time to consume the nutrients before the skimmer removes stuff at night. So far it seems to be working

 

[P3FE]

Here is a few full shots of the tank, it paints the full picture of my dilemma, you can also see the cyano outbreak due to the Acropower, that is almost gone now.

 

[P3FE]

Try cutting your light schedule to 8 hours a day.I would also lower it to 80% or lower. I also think you may be blasting them with a little to much light
I would raise the calcium a bit.

I get about 360par at the top of the aqua scape and around 100 at the sand bed, 250 at the middle of the tank. Didn't think it was to much light for SPS but I think I will lower them a bit and see what happens. I also order a Triton test to make sure there's not something I can't test that is causing this.

 

[marke]

Nice pic of the tank Keith! Listen to Keith he is correct! If your po4 and nitrates are really that low then you are starving your corals. I hear what your saying about the lps doing well, so it makes me wonder if your nutrients are really that low or could it be test kit error? Maybe have someone else test your water to compare? If its low nutrients you could add a couple fish and feed them more. Just another way to add nutrients.

 

[P3FE]

Nice pic of the tank Keith! Listen to Keith he is correct! If your po4 and nitrates are really that low then you are starving your corals. I hear what your saying about the lps doing well, so it makes me wonder if your nutrients are really that low or could it be test kit error? Maybe have someone else test your water to compare? If its low nutrients you could add a couple fish and feed them more. Just another way to add nutrients.

I actually did, my LFS had nitrate and PO4 at 0. I test my nitrate with Red Sea and PO4 with Hanna. That's why I ordered the Triton test, to get a third more accurate test. Hopefully shutting down the skimmer for a few weeks will get me more nutrients, I'm also going to remove the sock for a few days and see what happens. Thanks

 

[reefndude]

I was having same issue. Low nutrients and couldn't get sps to color

I dosed amino acids which may of helped. I ended up dropping alk to 7.6 and also started feeding heavier.
Sps has responded well.
I also do not run a skimmer or use filter socks

 

[P3FE]

I was having same issue. Low nutrients and couldn't get sps to color

I dosed amino acids which may of helped. I ended up dropping alk to 7.6 and also started feeding heavier.
Sps has responded well.
I also do not run a skimmer or use filter socks

That's interesting!

 

[3Twinklets]

Your tank looks healthy. When I want to pop color a bit, I add a few drops of Amino Acid.
Many reefers use Vodka, including myself, to reduce nitrates as low as possible, having said that, corals are also fed either by feeding fish or using a commercial coral food.
I merely suggested lowering light levels slightly!!
I have T-5 lighting and my lights are on about 10 hours a day.

 

[joekool]

Need more fish poo. More fish and or more feeding. Careful not to use foods high in phosphate or with phosphate if possible. I feed new life spectrum to my fish.

Also i see this way to much. Your Ca is great for growing corals but at 450 your alk is not in ratio with your Ca. your Alk level should be in the area of 12.5 with a high Ca of 450. This is for faster coral growth. I would raise up alk in tank slowly over a week or two. You should see a start in growth and coloration along with some nitrates. Not a lot of nitrates but some is necessary for colorful SPS.

Fish and alk was the key I found for nice colorful and growing SPS corals.
Look at the last couple pages of my tank thread.

Hey but what do I know. And my corals certainly don't grow under LEDs lol they do haha

 

[P3FE]

Thanks, I looked into that

 

[DFW]

following along

 

[markalot]

My opinion, Alk and Calcium are fine, just keep Alk rock steady.

SPS need some food in the water, food as in food particles via fish or hand feeding. This can pollute a tank quickly so you have to have good exports as well. Wet skimming and lots of flow to keep particles suspended.

Don't do anything quickly and if you start coral feeding expect some algae outbreaks as the tank adjusts. I like either Reef Roids or BRS Reef Chili.

^^ In my opinion.

I'm not sure there is one correct answer but generally washed out colors is a food issue.

 

[duke4130]

Here is my graph I am using on my 50 cube.... Took me a long time to get it right for mixed reef but works well with everything with strategic placement of different types of corals. Its a 12 hour graph with some moon light effect for about an hour and half and it works great

Let me know what you think

 

[P3FE]

So I figure I give you guys an update. So I stopped skimming two weeks ago, and took the filter sock out a week ago, levels still the same, no detectable nitrates, PO4 still at .02. The glass is getting a lot dirtier and I lost my Hawkings but I think that was due to the stuff I used to get rid of the cyano. I picked one of my acros to be my meter on changes and that's the picture you see below. I can say everything is looking better color wise, specially the acans. So like with everything else in this hobby I'm taking it slow and doing one change at the time. I went with the nutrients theory first because it made a lot of sense and since I don't feed anything but the fish and I only have 4 fish in the tank I wanted to give it a shot. I will keep the progress coming.