Indo / Aussie gold torch coloration tips

[kartrsu]

I have become addicted to collecting torches and I see all these wonderful indo / Aussie golds for sale. I get that photos never do it justice vs real life, but see a lot of true golds out there that look stunning. I picked up an Aussie gold, dragon soul, and indo gold torch but my coloration is no where near what I expected and was wondering if folks had tips on bringing that out, or if it comes down to lineage and less about conditions.

Parameters
Salinity: 35ppt
Calcium: 470
Alk: 8.5
Mg: 1350
Nitrate: 10
Phosphate: .03
Temp: 78.5
pH: 8.1-8.2
PAR: ~150, 40% blues, 20% whites, REEFLED 90W

Examples:

Dragon soul torch
Bought at LFS, was not super colorful, but it was $125 a head ($250 total) so I figured to give it a try. This is it now, taken with flip-kick orange filter. Been upping the par and seeing a bit more coloration near the tips, but not deep.

This is it when I bought it, as you can tell, not very colorful.

Aussie gold torch & hammer
Coloration has stayed about the same since I got it. The gold is brighter under more blues. Also tentacles are half gold and half purple, so I'm guessing this is different than a 24K gold torch, or is that condition induced?

Here is the stock photo when I purchased it. Pretty gold.

Indo gold
This one I bought from black friday, so it's been in my QT for 2 weeks. You can see the tinge of gold at the tips from the top and also a bit more gold from the side. The orange filter brings it out, but no way as bright under my lighting.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look as good as the stock photo when I purchased it.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is 1) did I pay the pretty dollar on torches that are supposedly gold, but to a much lesser extent than you'd see in staple photos, and therefore, should look to buy the really gold ones or 2) do I have something I can work with and get it to color up more?

 

[Crashnt24]

My aussie gold took a month or so to really color up nice. Weekly spot feedings and lowering my PO4 seemed to really help. Since you have low PO4, try feeding him once or twice a week.

 

[Matt1997]

Blue lighting and an orange filter

The Aussie golds in my tank were solid gold. After I sold them to a friend, it became dominantly purple with gold streaks.

I know when the colors in my aussie golds were the best I had low lighting on the tank. Torches were placed 30” under the light and getting about 100 par. I had crazy high nutrients, alkalinity 10+, nitrate 25ppm+ and 0.4+ phosphates. This worked very well for me. This doesn’t work for everyone though...

 

[Duncan Tse]

IME they will color up more given time

Here is my dragon soul when I first got it vs now

Kept under low nutrients and high par around 250

 

[Uncle99]

Lighting has a huge effect on colour seen.
Pics can be deceiving.

 

[Crashnt24]

Keep it happy in one spot I think will be the final consensus. Unless you run a natural looking tank with high whites, you can achieve the colors in sellers photo. Moving tanks and establishing in your set-up won't kill them, but it will affect coloration. I have been able to regain colors in all my frags apart from my ultra rainbow wilsoni symphillia and that has to do with tank temp I believe.

 

[kartrsu]

Thanks for all the input and sharing of experiences. I will hold steady and hope for the best. I have been slowly ramping my lights and I think I’ll hit 175-200 par by the end of it. Will hold it there and observe. I started dosing reef energy ab+ daily too.

 

[kartrsu]

Been dosing Red Sea AB+ for about a month. More consistent in the past 3 weeks. I add 10ml to 60 gallons daily.

Also have been ramping up the lights. I did another PAR test and my initial assumptions were wrong. Torches were sitting at 130-150 at the end of initial acclimation. I started acclimating them to even higher light targeting 80% blues and 30% whites using Red Seas Reefleds.

I am trying to spot feed with roids and food debris from fish food, but torches don’t really wolf it down. Kind of slimes off, and I don’t know how much is taken in. I suspect the higher lighting is giving them more than enough energy so less feeding response?

Phosphates are at .04 tested today. Nitrates around 5. My macro algae is soaking up the nutrients like mad, red gracillaria is like 3x it’s original size. I turned off my skimmer to help up these numbers naturally and no longer run GFO. I have been told from many others to up the nutrients a little to bring out coloration.

Here are results after 1 week of ramping lights. Top is new, bottom is old. Next Monday will be the true 1 week test, since I stopped skimmer today. There is a bit bias in the photos, cause they were taken at different times in lighting schedule and ambient lighting, but will take it at the same time next week.

While nothing has bleached yet, I am toning back the rate of acclimation (20% in 25 days vs 14 days). I noticed polyp extension is a bit less, meaning thinner tentacles. My Aussie gold also starts going to sleep earlier in day before lights start dimming down. However it is fully open at peak intensity for several hours.

For those that have Aussie golds, what PAR have you kept them at? And, if I acclimate slowly, will they still be fat and extended once they get comfortable? Thanks!!!