SPS growth vs color

[luxe]

I need some help… my one sps that I’ve had since it was an encrusted frag (got it about 2-3 months ago) has a had crazy growth. I’m talking about crazy. But the color has been the same since, pale and bland even tho the growing edges are bright green. At the lfs it looked princess peach colored, red/pink and green. Is it normal for an sps to have a lot of growth and no coloration

 

[Science/G]

Trace Elements? Nitrate and Phosphate Levels?

 

[bradreef]

Typically this is either a sign of too high of light or to low of nutrients or higher alk. What are your levels.

 

[Science/G]

Those anacropora look good right next to it, and so do the LPS. It could probably take some more light.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

You've got softies and lps and sps corals under the same light, naturally some will want more or less light

 

[luxe]

Trace Elements? Nitrate and Phosphate Levels?

So I just did an Oceamo ICP-MS I was low on strontium, fluoride, iodine, nickel, selenium, and vanadium. That has since been corrected. NO3 is at .08 and PO4 at .03.

Typically this is either a sign of too high of light or to low of nutrients or higher alk. What are your levels.

I am experimenting with stabilizing my pH with saturated Kalk water so my ALK is dropping down from a peak of 13 dkh to 10 (but every other acro’s colors are nice and vibrant. Maybe this single piece is affected?). Lighting is a bit more tricky since I don’t have a par meter but I’m running gen 4 x30 pro at 50% on a modified POTO schedule 12 hours.

Those anacropora look good right next to it, and so do the LPS. It could probably take some more light.

I moved it to the side where it gets less intensity because I was afraid it might bleach since it’s looking so pale. It’s been there for a month.

You've got softies and lps and sps corals under the same light, naturally some will want more or less light

It’s a small frag tank with barely any space left. I’m waiting on my Seapora 80g frag tank to come in. It’s not browning so I assume it’s not starving from less light.

 

[bradreef]

With alk over 10 and very little nitrates, you can bleach out some acros. This is how most people ran acro tanks 20 years ago with high alk. Color can suffer and growth can really be good. Kind of like running a car at 6 k rmps. It will grow fast but can be more likely to blow up or wear out. I find that some acros will do better with low nutrients than others. I personally would want to bump the nitrates up and would recommend ammonia dosing to do so as corals seem to respond well to it with pulp extension and coloration.

 

[luxe]

With alk over 10 and very little nitrates, you can bleach out some acros. This is how most people ran acro tanks 20 years ago with high alk. Color can suffer and growth can really be good. Kind of like running a car at 6 k rmps. It will grow fast but can be more likely to blow up or wear out. I find that some acros will do better with low nutrients than others. I personally would want to bump the nitrates up and would recommend ammonia dosing to do so as corals seem to respond well to it with pulp extension and coloration.

I am dosing:
- Ammonium bicarbonate 1.5 ml 3x a day.
- TM Plus NP 1.5 2x a day
- Captiv8 Phosph8 1-2 drops every other day
- Red Sea amino acid 10 ml 1x weekly

I do run chaeto on a reverse schedule to help with my pH. Like I mentioned before everything is doing great, it’s just this Acro that baffles me.

 

[RudeDawg]

With alk over 10 and very little nitrates, you can bleach out some acros. This is how most people ran acro tanks 20 years ago with high alk. Color can suffer and growth can really be good. Kind of like running a car at 6 k rmps. It will grow fast but can be more likely to blow up or wear out. I find that some acros will do better with low nutrients than others. I personally would want to bump the nitrates up and would recommend ammonia dosing to do so as corals seem to respond well to it with pulp extension and coloration.

I apologize if this has been answered before. If you dose ammonia for nitrates, can you still test for nitrates with a Hanna or will it not show up as nitrate?

 

[luxe]

I apologize if this has been answered before. If you dose ammonia for nitrates, can you still test for nitrates with a Hanna or will it not show up as nitrate?

The ammonium will convert to the nitrogen corals uptake. I had to get a Hanna Lr to test because my nitrates were undetectable with the HR. As Randy Holmes Farley explained to me nitrates don’t have to be detectable for nitrogen to exist. I just like to know I don’t have 0 NO3

 

[bradreef]

I apologize if this has been answered before. If you dose ammonia for nitrates, can you still test for nitrates with a Hanna or will it not show up as nitrate?

Yes, it will convert.

 

[bluemon]

I am dosing:
- Ammonium bicarbonate 1.5 ml 3x a day.
- TM Plus NP 1.5 2x a day
- Captiv8 Phosph8 1-2 drops every other day
- Red Sea amino acid 10 ml 1x weekly

I do run chaeto on a reverse schedule to help with my pH. Like I mentioned before everything is doing great, it’s just this Acro that baffles me.

Instead of dosing ammonia and phosphates, can you feed the tank more?

I feel corals appreciate the fish poop and food more than straight up pure nutrients

 

[luxe]

Instead of dosing ammonia and phosphates, can you feed the tank more?

I feel corals appreciate the fish poop and food more than straight up pure nutrients

I’m gonna have to do a write up of everything that goes into the tank and have it saved on my notes lol.
I feed very heavy PE mysis, Reef Nutrition and PE Pellets, and nutramar to the fish and PE Mysis and Reef Roids to corals.
Tanks a IM 25 Lagoon and only been up for 1.5 years with TBSW live rock rubble

 

[reefpanda]

A thing to note, don’t try to change the whole tank parameters for that 1 coral if everything else is thriving

 

[luxe]

A thing to note, don’t try to change the whole tank parameters for that 1 coral if everything else is thriving

Oh I’m not. I have waaaayyyy more high end corals. It’s just the fact that it’s growth rate is crazy but the color is not there

 

[liddojunior]

Is it me or it’s not the color that’s missing. It’s like got super thin skin. Maybe it’s growing faster than tissue can grow? Maybe needs some more nutrients and aminos for tissue growth? Looks like it has what it needs for skeleton growth

 

[luxe]

Is it me or it’s not the color that’s missing. It’s like got super thin skin. Maybe it’s growing faster than tissue can grow? Maybe needs some more nutrients and aminos for tissue growth? Looks like it has what it needs for skeleton growth

Hmmmm that does make sense. But I dose 10 ml Red Sea aminos weekly.

 

[REEFRIED!]

Before you go crazy and change any of your current parameters and or dosing regime, I would simply move the coral. First of all if you keep everything else you are doing the same and move the coral it would be a good indicator that moving either helped or hurt. If you start chasing your tail changing 2 or 3 things you will never know. I personally do not like my alk at 10. However stability is much more important than the number you chose.

In my opinion, if that first picture is a good representation of what the coral looks like to your eyes. Then I believe it could use more light. A lot of people on here will tell you it has a “bleached” look. I do not think that is the case. Hard to tell by the pics but it looks like it is on the right side of that tank. I would move it to an area you believe has more light. If you believe it is in an area that is well lit, then I would make some kind of lift for it. Raise it 4-5” and wait a month and see what happens.

Lastly, color is much harder to achieve than growth in my experience. When my tank is in a good stride and 90% of SPS look amazing there is always a few pieces that I am not getting the best color out of. It is what it is. Some frags take AWHILE to color up. I have one milli that is beautiful, it is a perfect pink/purple. Almost Lavender. The minute I take a frag from it the frag turns green. Within a week. Then will take 3-4 months to get that original color back. Another example is a TSA Bill Murray. The original frag I got was perfect color wise. It was orange with a green base and light blue growth tips. Within two weeks in my system it was 100% green. I acclimated it to my lights and placed it in a spot where I knew it would do well. TSA personally told me their best colony gets blasted with par. So I placed it in a very high par spot. It grew well and stayed solid green for over a year. It is just now getting that nice deep orange while the base is staying green with the nice blue new growth/tips.

 

[luxe]

Before you go crazy and change any of your current parameters and or dosing regime, I would simply move the coral. First of all if you keep everything else you are doing the same and move the coral it would be a good indicator that moving either helped or hurt. If you start chasing your tail changing 2 or 3 things you will never know. I personally do not like my alk at 10. However stability is much more important than the number you chose.

In my opinion, if that first picture is a good representation of what the coral looks like to your eyes. Then I believe it could use more light. A lot of people on here will tell you it has a “bleached” look. I do not think that is the case. Hard to tell by the pics but it looks like it is on the right side of that tank. I would move it to an area you believe has more light. If you believe it is in an area that is well lit, then I would make some kind of lift for it. Raise it 4-5” and wait a month and see what happens.

Lastly, color is much harder to achieve than growth in my experience. When my tank is in a good stride and 90% of SPS look amazing there is always a few pieces that I am not getting the best color out of. It is what it is. Some frags take AWHILE to color up. I have one milli that is beautiful, it is a perfect pink/purple. Almost Lavender. The minute I take a frag from it the frag turns green. Within a week. Then will take 3-4 months to get that original color back. Another example is a TSA Bill Murray. The original frag I got was perfect color wise. It was orange with a green base and light blue growth tips. Within two weeks in my system it was 100% green. I acclimated it to my lights and placed it in a spot where I knew it would do well. TSA personally told me their best colony gets blasted with par. So I placed it in a very high par spot. It grew well and stayed solid green for over a year. It is just now getting that nice deep orange while the base is staying green with the nice blue new growth/tips.

Thanks for the lengthy reply. I’ll move it closer to where the rest of my acros are and see what happens. I don’t want to chase numbers per se, im just trying to keep pH elevated and the high alk is just a temporary byproduct of that. It has been slowly coming down and I’ve read about tanks taking months for it to lower to an acceptable range.
I too have a TSA Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Rick Moranis that are developing the blues and encrusting on tiles. I’ll move it closer to those acro’s.

Thanks again!

 

[luxe]

And also thanks to everyone that chimed in with all the help