Red SPS Struggles

Gk5321

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I have a very small (8 gallon) SPS dominant tank. My corals are all doing well - surprisingly and I am now using this tank to hone my skills further before upgrading to a much larger system in the next year or so. I seem to struggle to get any of the acros that should be red to color up. Anything I have that should be red, montis, to red planets grow just fine but are a bit pale. Anything I grow that’s green does great and is super bright and colorful. I’m not sure if there is a specific trace element I am missing that supports red coloration better (iodine? I dose this daily). As part of my experimenting I’ve messed with my light intensity becuase I thought that might be the driver for the faded red corals but that didn’t seem to help. I recently place a red monti (not sure of the name) on the bottom of the tank in some shade a few weeks ago and it’s already fully encrusted but has also lost some red color. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Monti photos for example:

1735957725753.jpeg 1735957745688.jpeg
 
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Gk5321

Gk5321

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Sorry the pictures don’t really show the issue. The new coral is definitely a little lighter
 

Faurek

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Red is somewhat tied to potassium according I think was Sanjay.
But your problem is probably light, blues don't excite red chromoproteins which is probably your problem, blue and green excite red fluorescent proteins which are different. Add some white.
 
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Gk5321

Gk5321

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Red is somewhat tied to potassium according I think was Sanjay.
But your problem is probably light, blues don't excite red chromoproteins which is probably your problem, blue and green excite red fluorescent proteins which are different. Add some white.
Thank you so much for the reply. When I got the light they only had the blue XR15’s in stock. I’m just running off one of the stock profiles. I’ll try and adjust white a bit if I can.

I believe my potassium levels have been in line with what moonshiners recommends but I’ll make sure to check when I get my results from the latest ICP test I sent. It’s interesting that red would link to potassium though.

I’m just glad I’m at the point where I can start trying to pin point color specific issues especially in an 8 gallon tank lol
 

Faurek

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If you just want easy SPS like montis you could just add from the red channel without touching the whites, if that fixture is semi decent you should get crazy fluorescence.
 

TangerineSpeedo

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Thank you so much for the reply. When I got the light they only had the blue XR15’s in stock. I’m just running off one of the stock profiles. I’ll try and adjust white a bit if I can.

I believe my potassium levels have been in line with what moonshiners recommends but I’ll make sure to check when I get my results from the latest ICP test I sent. It’s interesting that red would link to potassium though.

I’m just glad I’m at the point where I can start trying to pin point color specific issues especially in an 8 gallon tank lol
I believe WWC has a profile of A+B+ white on their site. I use that. Or just add 10-30% for a part of the day.
When I was running my 10g even with weekly water changes you can deplete trace pretty fast. At the time I was using the Red Sea trace colors and it worked really well. I was dosing very small amounts with 1ml syringes. You can purchase the small combo pack and it will last forever. When I went to a bigger tank, I switched to AFR, which I can't say is better or worse than RS because there more variables now.
 
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Gk5321

Gk5321

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If you just want easy SPS like montis you could just add from the red channel without touching the whites, if that fixture is semi decent you should get crazy fluorescence.
I’m using the CoralLab AB+ spectrum settings on an Ecotech XR15. I’ll see if I can bump up white a bit when I get home and run the acclimation schedule to ramp to the new levels.

It may also be nutrient levels. They’re very hard to control in a small tank. I check daily (and should probably do more often).
 

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Gk5321

Gk5321

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MrGisonni

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Lighting and trace elements are the two most likely suspects as already mentioned. Phosphates also seem to impact coloration.
 

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