How to improve SPS color?

[Cassian]

hello all! I have recently gotten into the SPS world and I have some questions. My sps grow great, but they have lost color over the weeks ive had them. I feed Reef Chili twice a week and my fish are fed three days a week. below are my parameters:

Salinity: 1.023
Kh: 12
PH: 8.1
Cal: 430
Mag:1300
Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia: 0 ppm
Temp: 75-76

Lighting:
Radions Xr30w gen4
running reef lab ABS program at 50% for 12 hours and deep blues at night for 4 hours
I used to run Shallow reef at 70% for 12 hours, but I think I was blasting them with light so I changed this about a week ago.

Flow:
Return pump (close to 150 GPH I think. I can find out if this is important for you to know)

Filtration:
400 micron filter sock changed once a week
Bubble Magnus protein skimmer running 24/7
various filters in-between skimmer and pump


I have great PE at night an slightly less during the day. of you have any suggestions please let me know. thanks in advance!

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I have the same issue, sps grow well but my purples and blues go to greens and browns. I also have low no3, undetectable on hobby grade kits.
Your salinity is a bit low, raise it 1.025-1.026, be sure your refractometer is calibrated. Lots of flow, lots and lots of flow. Keeping the big 3 stable. I would try to slowly lower your alk as well to around 8.

 

[Cassian]

I have the same issue, sps grow well but my purples and blues go to greens and browns. I also have low no3, undetectable on hobby grade kits.
Your salinity is a bit low, raise it 1.025-1.026, be sure your refractometer is calibrated. Lots of flow, lots and lots of flow. Keeping the big 3 stable. I would try to slowly lower your alk as well to around 8.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Reefer40b]

Raise temp to 78 steady when I had an issue with my controller my tank would dip down to 75 and some sps would brown out/dull color but continue to grow, raise salinity to 1.026-27. Lower alk as that will wash out colors without heavy import of nutrients 12 is really high and things will go bad real quick at that high, I would target 7.7-8.0 All of this is a lot of change so do this extremely slowly as you do not want to RTN them..

Get those nitrates up 10-20ppm, add some fish and feed them a lot so they are nice and fat. they will then feed those corals for you!

 

[Mal11224]

I think I’ve learned that the key is stability. Try not to change too many things at once. I do think your Alk is a little high for your nutrient level. Corals will do better with some trace of nutrients in the tank. Looks like you are only feeding 3 times a week and use reef chilli. But, nitrates are at zero so maybe you need to figure out how to get it to a detectable level.

I use acro power and have seen great results. I also feed my fish twice a day. This works for me at the moment.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Yep. Your dissolved nutrients (or more precisely, the lack of dissolved nutrients) in combination with the high alkalinity is an absolutely classic cause of fading coral colors. In the extreme case, it will potentially cause RTN and losses.

For adjusting this, I'd first suggest feeding your fish at least every day, if not several times a day. Fish in the wild eat small amounts throughout the day; while a lot of them will survive on less frequent feedings, it's not optimal, and in the case of certain species (anthias being the most glaring example), infrequent feeding will compromise their health.

What I'd recommend is:
1) Increase feeding frequency for your fish. Twice a day would be optimal.
2) Discontinue alkalinity dosing, if any, while you get the specific gravity to normal levels.
3) Adjust your specific gravity to 1.026 by turning off your ATO and allowing gradual evaporation to increase the dissolved ions. Monitor this closely - do not overshoot 1.026.
4) Continue to test the alkalinity daily, at the same time every day, until you reach about 8 dKH. You can then resume dosing.
5) Choose a salt mix for water changes that's a close match to your desired alkalinity - HW Weigandt, Tropic Marin and Brightwell Marine all make salt mixes that are close to 8 dKH, there may be others that are suitable as well.

 

[Cassian]

Thanks both of you! I’ll try to lower alk. Do y’all know how to do that? I’ve been reasearchin it but I can’t find anything on it. I will adjust temp as well. I had put a fan in my sump because I was told the temp was too high, but I will unplug it now.

Edit: just saw your post about how to lower alk. Thanks @Dkeller_nc ! I do not dose anything. Is it possible to add salt to my ATO to increase salinity? My tank evaporates very quickly for some reason and if I unplug my ATO it will run dry in 24 hours

 

[Reefer40b]

3) Adjust your specific gravity to 1.026 by turning off your ATO and allowing gradual evaporation to increase the dissolved ions. Monitor this closely - do not overshoot 1.026.

Curious your reasoning behind this, I know battle corals runs his at 1.030. And I run mine 1.026-1.027. I would possibly go higher if I was purely SPS like Adam. Is this just becuase he has High Alk and could be using a High Alk salt therefore higher SG the higher the ALK? and since he is currently trying to lower it that would be a bad idea?

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Another way to do it would be to simply leave your ATO plugged in, and add a cup or two of saltwater to the sump every day. I wouldn't recommend adding saltwater to your ATO, as a little bit of forgetfulness potentially means way overshooting the optimal salinity level.

If you don't dose anything, and based on your nutrient levels (zero), I'm interpreting that this is a fairly new tank. Is this the case?

 

[Cassian]

Another way to do it would be to simply leave your ATO plugged in, and add a cup or two of saltwater to the sump every day. I wouldn't recommend adding saltwater to your ATO, as a little bit of forgetfulness potentially means way overshooting the optimal salinity level.

If you don't dose anything, and based on your nutrient levels (zero), I'm interpreting that this is a fairly new tank. Is this the case?

Ok, I will add salt that way. The tank has been setup since November. I know some people don’t believe it’s wise to put sps in before 1 year old, don’t murder me please. My tank has been very stable so I decided it was ok. They have been doing great so far, so I think it’s just the high alk affecting them.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Curious your reasoning behind this, I know battle corals runs his at 1.030. And I run mine 1.026-1.027. I would possibly go higher if I was purely SPS like Adam. Is this just becuase he has High Alk and could be using a High Alk salt therefore higher SG the higher the ALK? and since he is currently trying to lower it that would be a bad idea?

Yes. Approximately speaking, and all other things being equal, increasing his specific gravity to 1.026 will increase his alk to about 13.6, which is really high, especially with near zero nutrients.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Ok, I will add salt that way. The tank has been setup since November. I know some people don’t believe it’s wise to put sps in before 1 year old, don’t murder me please. My tank has been very stable so I decided it was ok. They have been doing great so far, so I think it’s just the high alk affecting them.

It's your tank, people jumping on others for their choices is inappropriately rude, IMO (the "tang police" comes to mind).

Just a note about the issue that you posted about. What tends to happen in high alkalinity and really low nutrients is that the coral colors fade, and then the coral RTNs in a day.

 

[jda]

16 hours of light is a lot.

You will struggle to get amazing SPS color with Radions alone with that schedule. Some of the best Radion tanks have them way up high at 100% on all channels. The rest add 4x T5s.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

16 hours of light is a lot.

You will struggle to get amazing SPS color with Radions alone with that schedule. Some of the best Radion tanks have them way up high at 100% on all channels. The rest add 4x T5s.

Yeah, didn't catch that the first time I read through it, but 16 hours is probably a bit much, depending on the intensity at the beginning/end of the photoperiod. The unfortunate thing about LEDs is that it's not really possible to determine whether you've too much or too little light by appearance. You pretty much have to have a PAR meter for this, which I think is one reason that Bulk Reef Supply started renting them out.

 

[Cassian]

Thank you all very much! I will lower the light to 12 hours a day. should I keep the output t 60% or do 100% for fewer hours?
I am also going to gradually raise the salinity like you said.
What does RTN mean?
lastly, is there a chemical that lowers alk? Would it help if I did WCs every 2 months instead of every month?

 

[jda]

You can lower alk with Muratic Acid, but it really drops the pH, so best to only do for salt mix before it enters your tank. An extra day of aerating the salt mix will drive the co2 out of the water and raise the pH back up to normal.

 

[Cassian]

You can lower alk with Muratic Acid, but it really drops the pH, so best to only do for salt mix before it enters your tank. An extra day of aerating the salt mix will drive the co2 out of the water and raise the pH back up to normal.

good to know. would you suggest doing that just to lower it some or stick with the natural way?

 

[jda]

Natural lower. You can make fresh saltwater to match. Let the salt fully mix before you add any acid, and wait a few more days for the pH to rise again. Gallons * dKh drop * .123 is the mls of muratic acid to use.

I don't think that high dKh is a huge deal unless you are artificially stripping the water of N and P with media, chemicals (organic carbon, GFO, Lan Chloride, etc.). I do keep mine more towards 6.X, through, because I am a fan of natural seawater parameters, but we all used to keep alk at 10-12 back in the day and everything was OK.

 

[Cassian]

ok, so I changed my lights to 11 hours/day. I am going to wean them down to a 9 hour photoperiod. I have upped my fish feeding to once per day. going to wean onto 3x per day. raising temp to 78 over the next week or two. adding some salt to my filter sock today. anything yall would suggest other than those things?

 

[Dkeller_nc]

adding some salt to my filter sock today. anything yall would suggest other than those things?

Don't! You'll more than likely just create a solid lump of calcium carbonate, depending on how much you add at once. Just as an aside - never add salt mix to an aquarium, unless it's a brand new tank full of RODI that you're setting up for the first time.

RTN = rapid tissue necrosis. Probably most associated with acropora; coral looks fine, if a little pale, one day, and is a dead skeleton the next.

What jda notes is true - lots of folks ran really high alkalinity 15 - 20 years ago. There's a couple of reasons that they got away with it (I was one, btw). First, nutrient-stripping substances like GFO, Lanthanum Chloride and procedures like carbon dosing to lower nitrates weren't common, and people typically didn't test for phosphate. Most tanks had a good bit of algae and relatively high nitrates and phosphates, and while nitrate was (inappropriately) viewed as bad, there wasn't much reefers could do about it except lots of water changes, which only lowered it some. The second reason is that acropora species weren't common in aquariums, as they just didn't live all that long. In fact, one of the reasons that Julian Sprung has the reputation that he does is that he actually got acropora species to grow on the glass of his 20 gallon reef in the late 1980's - that was considered impossible but a whole lot of experts, including many scientists. That said, some stony corals were quite common, and a lot of us had good success with them, particularly montiporas, turbinaria, so-called "pagoda corals", and euphyllias.

Another reason that people ran high alkalinity was that's the way "salt" came, which back in the day was almost universally Instant Ocean. Dosing was relatively uncommon, and surprisingly, the most often dosed compound was calcium; alkalinity was pretty much ignored. Today we know better - alkalinity stability is absolutely critical for success with acropora, and calcium doesn't matter all that much as long as it's >380 ppm.

I find your comment that you only do water changes once per month and you still have alkalinity > 10 dKH surprising. Most aquariums will "lose" alkalinity over time much more rapidly than that, even if it doesn't have much in the way of stony corals in it. In any event, I'd monitor it rather closely - if you've very few corals in the tank, I'd check it twice a week with a high-quality test kit (Salifert or Red Sea). There's a lot of folks that will argue back and forth about what the ideal alkalinity is in an SPS tank, but most of them will agree that stability of whatever target they pick is fairly important.