Coral Coloration Issues

L

laws_pt

I have a 105 gal setup with a few sps birdsnests and montiporas. My water perameters are all good. I have a 1st gen radion and a 2nd gen radion hanging at 10 inches above the water. My coral colors suck. They all seem healthy enough and are growing but the only color I can seem to get to come out well is green. My confusa has a nice green base but the growth rim has no purple whatsoever. I also have a hyacinth birdsnest that looks brown. both are healthy and growing like crazy. I have a frag of Miami Orchid and Tri-Color Valida that both look brown. And lastly is my Superman Monti colony, it has awsomely bright orange polyps, it's growing like a champ but the base doesn't have that soft blue that it's supposed to have, again, it looks more brown with a slight blue tint. I test my water 2-3 time per week and also have my LFS check it every week. Everything seems spot on from a water standpoint. Does anyone have any ideas? I'll take all the help I can get?
Thanks guys.

Travis
 
Leds change the color of corals. Ive noticed almost all of mine under leds seem to have a green hue to them.


Sent from pay phone in the airport.
 
How long have you had them under LED's, what percentages are you running for each color, what power level are you running them at, and for how long? I do not have experience with the Ecotech LED's but someone else might be able to help if you post the above information. I know it took me a little while to figure out what works with my LEDs which involved tweaking power levels and colors for each color. Actually, it is more of an ongoing process as I experiment with different things.
 
I have them running on the pre-programmed artificial mode at 50% for 8 hours. came down to these settings about 3 weeks ago from 80% for about 12 hours. The Blues come on at 20% and slowly dim out over 4 hours at the end of the artificial mode cycle. All the oranges and greens seem to really pop, I just can't seen to get anything else to come through. Anything with a blue or purple coloring are just browned out.
 
This is the same issues ive been having with leds. There is a big chat about the same issues on other forums. Pretty much everyone has similar issues with leds. I still like leds for the amount of growth im getting. And starting to get used to the color shifting. I have noticed when my phosphates are a little higher the green hue is more. Not sure what that is about. Maybe just the zooxanthellae eating free floating algae, then corals consume zooxanthellae, causing more green to come out.


Sent from pay phone in the airport.
 
I've been using LEDs for 2 years now. First, certain species of my new sps frags always get a green tint for about a month til they acclimate. Then the new growth shows the true colors. Second: Different lighting. The same coral in my tank looks totally different in someone else's tank. If you want more purple tips to show, raise the magenta. If you want more pop, orange and purple n less whites. I like to supplement my LEDs with actinic T-5's. Browning of sps is prolly due to high nutrients or phosphates. Do you dose? Do you run bio pellets? Zeovit? What type of system are you running? Your question is simple, but the answer isn't.
 
I have a TLF 150 running with bio pellets and a TLF 550 running with phosban. Phosphates average 0.2 to 0.3, I have a doser running alk which keeps my alkalinity right at 10. I also dose Red Sea Reef Energy A every couple weeks or so. I direct feed all my coral with a liquid coral food every week. I feed the tank with a combination of 1mm pellets and Rods Frozen fish food. My refugium is running with chaeto, dragon's breath, and another macro that I can't remember the name of, it looks like green spagetti.
 
This has been how my tank has been running for 3 months or so. I had to fine tune the alk doser when I got it but everything has been very consistent for 2-3 months now. I really don't think it's a water issue. But I still have a lot to learn. Keep the ideas comming! Thanks .
 
Yea, I have been thinking of changing lighting altogether and going with MHs instead of LEDs. I'm hoping to resolve it without having to do that though.
 
I have different LEDs from you but I've been running my whites significantly lower than blues and reds and greens are only at about 10% or so on mine. I have various tri-colors and miami orchid that went through what you described at first. Same sort of thing with a Leny Sy type monticap that initially did not have the purple on the leading edge. Shifting to lower intensity on the whites and then messing with the various levels for the blue LEDs to where they were significantly higher but not bleaching things out helped out a lot.
 
Thanks Mike, I will try playing the settings a bit and see what happens. I also sent an email to ecotech to see if they had any ideas to offer up.
 
You can probably do some searches on reef forums too for what others have set their Ecotech fixture levels at. I did that for my lights to get some good adjustment points. My initial problems were that I was the first on the bandwagon with new lights so there was no baseline to go by. I'm waiting a bit now before my next upgrade so I can let other people be guinea pigs with their tanks. [smilie=smile.gif]
 
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