Color morph

[JWsticks]

I run full spectrum for 8 hours then 4 hours of blue. The first pic was a brownie frag I got from the LFS so decided to give it a suntan and this turned into a mini colonly after 13 months.

Last month, i decided to do a rebuild and moved it back to the LFS. Second pic is color morph of the same coral in the LFS display primarily running blues.

Great result for a blue only tank, but question comes to mind was why did it just stay brown previously?

 

[Saltyreef]

You're doing something right in your tank vs the LFS. Could be suppliment difference, could be nutrients....could be quality of spectrum on your lights resulting in different par...

 

[mcarroll]

I run full spectrum for 8 hours then 4 hours of blue. The first pic was a brownie frag I got from the LFS so decided to give it a suntan and this turned into a mini colonly after 13 months.

Last month, i decided to do a rebuild and moved it back to the LFS. Second pic is color morph of the same coral in the LFS display primarily running blues.

Great result for a blue only tank, but question comes to mind was why did it just stay brown previously?

You are focusing on light for some reason.

Make a list of the differences between all three positions: it's old location, your tank and the new location

At minimum it is going to be a different...
...distance from the surface in each setting
...different flow in each setting

Those are the most significant. But there are likely MANY more differences between the locations....maybe water temperature, dissolved nutrient levels, feeding differences, etc.

Speculation: Higher dissolved N levels can make symbiodinium dino's in the corals system multiply, giving them a "browner" tone in color....really more brown-orange.

For reference, peridinin, which is the main dino pigment, is in the lab sample on the right.....

Light stress also causes more pigment variation, but it doesn't take much light to stress a coral....100-200 PAR in most cases. But if there's a big difference in lighting intensity between the coral's various locations, obviously that's going to play a role.

We can only speculate, but you're there with them....make that list and you can probably figure out what is making the difference.