How to keep yellow acros???

BantyRooster97 · Jul 9, 2018

In the last year I’ve added 2 yellow acros to my tank (OG pikachu and wolverine) and both lose their yellow color within a month or 2.

What is the secret to keeping them yellow?

Will they turn back if I make the change?

Thx

Reeferdood · Jul 10, 2018

Are you keeping other acros as well? If so, what are your parameters?
Yellows like less nitrate and phosphate than other colors, will benefit from aminos too.

jda · Jul 10, 2018

For real:
Lots of full spectrum light and very good NSW water parameters. IMO, if you get much above 1N and .01P, they will often go green (not all the time). Edit - just saw that Reeferdood said this too, so sorry.

If they looked yellow in your tank for a while and slowly faded away, then you probably had the right light to illuminate them, but not the right light to actually render the color. How are you lighting them... this will matter.

For fake:
Photoshop - most of what you see is just this.

BantyRooster97 · Jul 10, 2018

So I run LED in both of my tanks, and try to buy corals from people who run LED. Both of these I bought in person, locally. I have tried to keep 1 in each of my tanks, but I run pretty similar params.
ALK - 7.5
CAL - 420
MAG - 1300
Salt - 1.025 (Tropic Marin Pro)
1 tank has PO4 .08 & NO3 2
1 tank has undetectable of both.
Temp 78ish

My latest wolverine, is in the low PO4 & NO3 tank has turned a purple color. In the same tank I have a Miyagi Tort that is growing strong with a lime green/yellowish tint to its skin. I also have a fox flame & its tip is more purple than yellow since I got it. I also have 6 other frags that are growing well.

My OG Pikachu (gone now) was in my other tank. My phosphates shot up and I brought them down too rapidly & have been fighting a losing battle ever since with my corals (lost 80%) of them (frags & small colonies). But before that, it basically did the same thing. Turned purple. That tank had ALK around 9 back when I bought that frag in April.

jda · Jul 10, 2018

I am an undetectable guy too... well, actually around .1n (IC test) and .005-.01p (now detectable with Hannah, but previously undetectable) and the yellow show fine in my Picachu, Wolverine, OG OG Pink Lemonade, Pink Floyd, MattV Hornet and a nice Lopries/Lokani that I have. If somebody wanted to argue that MattV Hornet, Picachu and Pink Floyd were all within 2% of each other or even the same coral, I would not argue back. My wolverine only gets yellow tips and corallines - not branches... not sure what other people's do.

Maybe you need some more daylight? I keep mine under Halides, so intensity nor spectrum are a problem. Do you supplement with any full-spectrum lighting (T5) that will have some good yellow, green and red?

jda · Jul 10, 2018

BTW - yes, they can turn back. It can take some time, but any coral can get back to what they once were, or are supposed to be.

BantyRooster97 · Jul 10, 2018

I have T5 on my big tank (where the Pikachu) was, I do not on my other (it is a Biocube 32)

skysoblue987 · Jul 10, 2018

What salt brand do you use? You might not have the trace elements to keep yellow.

I keep my acros under 4 ATI Blue+, 1 Coral+, 1 Purple+ and uses Red Sea Coral Pro. I don't have problem keeping any color.

BantyRooster97 · Jul 10, 2018

Tropic Marin Pro-Reef

I was actually wondering the same thing. The wolverine came out of a tank with all LED lighting, not sure what salt.

Ken Lee · Jul 10, 2018

Just to share some experience, i have couple sps frags slowly turn green within 2~3weeks when it is 1st intro into my tank & at that time my tank condition are not that good. But it didn't STN/RTN & not much PE.
After couple months, when my tank conditions are better, those green frags start to return to its original condition & i am using LED at this moment.
My theory is that when certain sps intro into new tank condition which it is not ideal, it will protect itself turn itself into hibernation mode & certain coloration to stay alive. As long as it is not STN/RTN, u always have chance to bring its coloration back whenever your tank conditions improving.
Below is 1 of my example:-
Red stag turn green when 1st intro into my tank, now condition is improving, start encrusting & turn pink, hopefully it will turn to red in the near future.