Coral changed from red to green

[Mark Waltermire]

I have a question that I'm sure is going to stumble some of you. I bought a 120 tank setup from a guy at the beginning of November. I moved over most of the corals into my 72 gallon. I have noticed after receiving a pink millepora that is turning green that it's not the first coral exhibiting this behavior when I was looking back at photos.

I received a red tabling acropora when I got this tank, but it is now green. I know that a lot of you guys are going to say that it's due to different lighting, but I took the lights that were on the 120 system that this tabling acro and put them on my 72 gallon. This means that it was never under any different type of light but in the past 2 months it still has changed color. The only other difference would be he was running high nutrients in his tank due to neglect. He was also using Instant Ocean Reef Crystals, whereas I'm using Fritz RPM.

I have attached a couple of photos.

 

[tdileo]

It’s very likely from the nutrients being lowered. It may even change color again in a few months. I’m sure lots of other, including myself, have experienced acros turning brown, then green, then coloring up once again to their true coloration. Hope that you get a crazy color colony!

 

[happyhourhero]

I find that green outs are the step above Brown outs and can be brought on by just about any change. Usually the coral colors back up after a time.

 

[Mark Waltermire]

It’s very likely from the nutrients being lowered. It may even change color again in a few months. I’m sure lots of other, including myself, have experienced acros turning brown, then green, then coloring up once again to their true coloration. Hope that you get a crazy color colony!

So I should just wait and see what happens? I have some of Red Sea’s coral colors on the way because I have tested that Iron and Potassium are low. I also have a triton test coming to me but was thinking I would hold out for a little bit before sending that in as the tank has only had corals in it for a couple of months now. I was thinking that looking at the tank after maybe 4 months would yield more telling information.