GARF Bonsai color fading

[don_chuwish]

Hello,

Back in mid February I got a nice frag from @BoomCorals and after a few weeks in QT under 250W MH it was looking good and had even grown a bit. The light was high above the surface and the frags were about 16" deep.
In the DT for about 6 weeks now and the past couple of weeks I've been worried about fading color.
My only suspicions are around lighting and Nitrates but I'm very open to ideas!
Prior to ordering the GARF and some other SPS I'd managed to get my nutrients into a nice sweet spot:
NO3: 1.5 (Red Sea)
PO4: 0.01 (Hanna ULR)
But that was after working at getting them up from zero.
In March I started seeing Nitrates up to 16 using the Red Sea high range testing. PO4 stayed reasonable at 0.03.
Dosing NOPOX for a week got Nitrates back down to about 8. No change to the fading problem.

Lighting is LED supplemented with T5, 12" above the water:
R420R 120W LED, schedule:

36" LET T5 Retro kit, 2 x ATI Coral Plus bulbs:
On 10:00 to 16:00

GARF is about 7" under the surface.

So should I work harder at reducing NO3? Increase/Decrease light intensity? Other?

 

[Ulee]

I have a Garf bonsai and it really like the intense lighting.

My colony is very deep blue , and is under intense lighting, led and t5. I have a few frags of it and are lighter in tone. Same tank.

 

[ZaneTer]

Do you have access to a PAR meter? It would be nice to know what it was getting previously and what it is currently exposed to now.
Low nutrients (NO3<1ppm PO4<0.03ppm) cause far more problems in my experience than high nutrients( NO3>10ppm PO4>0.1ppm)

Quite frankly it could be either. Without a PAR meter it becomes difficult to discern.

 

[ZaneTer]

To be honest I would be surprised with the lighting you have if that is the problem.

 

[ZaneTer]

Please would you give us a picture of your valida (garf bonsai)
I have one that pales out under low nutrients.

 

[don_chuwish]

Thanks all - kinda how I felt as well and why I'm confused about the fading. I'll get pics tomorrow when lights are at max.
Sorry, no chance at PAR meter readings.

 

[ZaneTer]

Well don’t panic, they are incredibly hardy corals. You should have plenty of time to fix this.

 

[BoomCorals]

My system runs low nutrients, usually nitrate of 1 or less and phosphate of .03. If my nitrates creep above 5 some of my corals fade and others will lose color or brown a bit. I’d try to get back to what you had when the coral was looking great. In my opinion, It’s either the high nitrate or the change from MH to other lighting. (Or both)

My garf are kept at about 300 PAR all T5.

Hello,

Back in mid February I got a nice frag from @BoomCorals and after a few weeks in QT under 250W MH it was looking good and had even grown a bit. The light was high above the surface and the frags were about 16" deep.
In the DT for about 6 weeks now and the past couple of weeks I've been worried about fading color.
My only suspicions are around lighting and Nitrates but I'm very open to ideas!
Prior to ordering the GARF and some other SPS I'd managed to get my nutrients into a nice sweet spot:
NO3: 1.5 (Red Sea)
PO4: 0.01 (Hanna ULR)
But that was after working at getting them up from zero.
In March I started seeing Nitrates up to 16 using the Red Sea high range testing. PO4 stayed reasonable at 0.03.
Dosing NOPOX for a week got Nitrates back down to about 8. No change to the fading problem.

Lighting is LED supplemented with T5, 12" above the water:
R420R 120W LED, schedule:

36" LET T5 Retro kit, 2 x ATI Coral Plus bulbs:
On 10:00 to 16:00

GARF is about 7" under the surface.

So should I work harder at reducing NO3? Increase/Decrease light intensity? Other?

 

[J. Austin]

That coral will certainly fade color with low nutrients. It will also fade if it has AEFW on it. I'd stop your pumps and lightly baste your bonsai to see if you have any pests on it as this coral is a flat worm favorite for sure. I wouldn't strive for 0 phosphate and 0 nitrate as that will cause corals to starve a bit.

Photos will help us get a better idea of what's going on.

 

[don_chuwish]

My system runs low nutrients, usually nitrate of 1 or less and phosphate of .03. If my nitrates creep above 5 some of my corals fade and others will lose color or brown a bit. I’d try to get back to what you had when the coral was looking great. In my opinion, It’s either the high nitrate or the change from MH to other lighting. (Or both)

My garf are kept at about 300 PAR all T5.

Thanks for the input! Looking at photos and comparing March 7th with today it's hard to get a perfect color reference, but these are pretty close. At least we can see that it has encrusted some more. I'll work on reducing Nitrate and perhaps turning up the LEDs a bit more.

March 7th - top down photo soon after getting out of QT:

Today - underwater camera with flash:

 

[BoomCorals]

Thanks for the input! Looking at photos and comparing March 7th with today it's hard to get a perfect color reference, but these are pretty close. At least we can see that it has encrusted some more. I'll work on reducing Nitrate and perhaps turning up the LEDs a bit more.

March 7th - top down photo soon after getting out of QT:

Today - underwater camera with flash:

That actually looks like it is starving. I’d decrease light and make sure nitrate and phosphate stay above zero. What is alk at?

 

[ZaneTer]

I’m going to match booms comment. Do you notice how the lightest patches on the coral will also be the surfaces receiving the most light? Also as boom says try to keep detectable nutrients.

 

[J. Austin]

Agreed, starving.

Easy fix.

 

[Scorpius]

Those are some clean rocks. lol. Get some nutrients in that tank.

 

[don_chuwish]

Today's numbers:

Alk: 8.46
Ca: 375
NO3: 12
PO4: 0.06

Alk and Ca have been quite steady at current dosing (ESV B-Ionic) but I think I need to bump up Ca a bit.
PO4 is a surprising rise but NO3 is about what I expected.

Those are some clean rocks. lol. Get some nutrients in that tank.

I think I have a few things keeping the rocks clean - initial good long curing, THOUSANDS of little baby trochus snails, and a refugium section in the sump with macro algae (light on at night). So far, knock wood, no DT algae problems.

 

[don_chuwish]

That actually looks like it is starving. I’d decrease light and make sure nitrate and phosphate stay above zero. What is alk at?

Decrease intensity and/or duration? I've often wondered if my light period is just too long, despite the sunrise/sunset taper periods.

 

[ZaneTer]

You could always put it back in the QT until you figure out what is going wrong.

 

[don_chuwish]

You could always put it back in the QT until you figure out what is going wrong.

QT is of course VERY low nutrient - nothing living in there. So that might be telling. To say it was doing well in QT may be misleading too - it was only in there for 3 weeks.
It's tempting to put the 250W MH over the DT just to see what happens, but I really can't see running with it long term. <sigh>

 

[don_chuwish]

So as an experiment, I've swapped in the 250W MH over that half of the tank. Tomorrow it'll be on for just 4 hours.
Lucky enough it fit almost perfectly in my floating canopy so it was an easy swap.
Time will tell!

 

[vuqchu]

I would pop that off and give it a dip. Some of the spots on it look suspicious.