Hi All!
Added this purple stylo to my tank about exactly a month ago and have noticed its skin is very slowly losing the dark brown pigment it had when I purchased it. I placed it higher up on my rock-work because it was being BLASTED by LEDs in the shop at the tippy top of their tank, and I know their PAR runs higher than mine so I figured I'd be good with placement. I have the Steve's LEDs upgrade and am running them fairly low intensity (blues 40% and whites around 35% I believe). Meanwhile, polyp extension is fantastic and it looks like a fuzzy little tree waving in the flow, the only 'issue' im noticing is the slow degradation of the skin color.
I see no signs of distress or RTN/STN or any sort of skin peeling, it's just simply losing pigment below the polyps. I am thinking maybe a light issue, or some sort of light acclimation issue, or maybe it's just shifting colors under my lighting and is completely healthy. What do you guys think?
My parameters have been rock solid since the August now and I've been testing alk and phosphate daily since then to tune in my All for Reef dosing, and to gauge how my po4 levels vary day-to-day based on my feeding and water change regimen. Because I have had no swings, I am less inclined to say it is a parameter issue because the tank hasn't gone 24 hours without me monitoring the alkalinity or nutrients in months. I test Ca and Mg weekly.
Here's how my params look:
alk - 8.6
ca - 440
mg - 1400
pH - 7.9-8.1(ish)
phos- .05-.09
I attached a side-by-side comparison from Nov 19 (on the left) to today (on the right) along with a picture immediately after I put it in the tank (on November 19) so you can see how dark the skin used to be (polyps weren't out yet because it was just placed after acclimation)
Added this purple stylo to my tank about exactly a month ago and have noticed its skin is very slowly losing the dark brown pigment it had when I purchased it. I placed it higher up on my rock-work because it was being BLASTED by LEDs in the shop at the tippy top of their tank, and I know their PAR runs higher than mine so I figured I'd be good with placement. I have the Steve's LEDs upgrade and am running them fairly low intensity (blues 40% and whites around 35% I believe). Meanwhile, polyp extension is fantastic and it looks like a fuzzy little tree waving in the flow, the only 'issue' im noticing is the slow degradation of the skin color.
I see no signs of distress or RTN/STN or any sort of skin peeling, it's just simply losing pigment below the polyps. I am thinking maybe a light issue, or some sort of light acclimation issue, or maybe it's just shifting colors under my lighting and is completely healthy. What do you guys think?
My parameters have been rock solid since the August now and I've been testing alk and phosphate daily since then to tune in my All for Reef dosing, and to gauge how my po4 levels vary day-to-day based on my feeding and water change regimen. Because I have had no swings, I am less inclined to say it is a parameter issue because the tank hasn't gone 24 hours without me monitoring the alkalinity or nutrients in months. I test Ca and Mg weekly.
Here's how my params look:
alk - 8.6
ca - 440
mg - 1400
pH - 7.9-8.1(ish)
phos- .05-.09
I attached a side-by-side comparison from Nov 19 (on the left) to today (on the right) along with a picture immediately after I put it in the tank (on November 19) so you can see how dark the skin used to be (polyps weren't out yet because it was just placed after acclimation)