Bringing out the best in my Corals

[apedroza]

Is there a secret to bringing out the true colors of my SPS. I have a couple fo pieces that just aren't coloring up the way they should be. My lighting is 2-250watt coralvue bulbs 14K with lumenarc reflectors. Iam dosing with KM TechCB and strontium. I alternate feeding with Marinesnow, phytoplex and zooplex. I plan on upgrading to reeflux 12K bulbs soon. Is there any pointers on bringing out the deep colors of corals. If I should supplement with something else please let me know. I get real jealous on seeing some of ya'lls tanks with all the blues and purples.

[thedude]

Actinic light in the 420nm range will really help blues and purples IME.

[fishypets]

Try feeding the oyster eggs instead of the Kent Marine product. What is your fish load like? How often and what do you feed your fish?

[apedroza]

I have a small actinic light that I use when the MH goes out. Other than that I really don't have room to add more lighting. what is oyster egg? Ive never heard of it. I on;ly have 3 fish in my tank (clown, wrasse and mandarin) that i feed once a day (brine, mysis). For the most part most of my acros look really nice, but I have a bonsai and blue slimer taht cant get out of the brown color.

[apedroza]

Am I missing anything??Are is there anything else I should supplement with? I hope to dd a Ca reactor in the future, would that help?

[acrofreak]

The Ca reactor will help with stablility not necessarily color. How long have you had the sps. It can take months for them to get they're color. I run 1 400w 10k xm over my 70g, no supplemental lighting and my colors are really starting to show. Blues, purples, oranges, teal ect. The only supplement I use is diy 2part ca., alk, and mag.

Feed DTs phyto, DTs oyster eggs, cyclopes 1-2 times a week. If you have enough of a fish load they will feed the corals.

How old are your bulbs? What's you phosphate, nitrate levels. Need to be as close to zero as possible. What is you CA and Alk levels?

It just takes time and patience.

[discuspro]

Something I've really noticed that brought the color out in my corals is tuning my skimmer to be very efficient, pulling out about and inch of skimmate a day and I only have one fish that I never feed in a 37gal overstocked sps tank. Also, I just upgraded to a huge calcium reactor and am really seeing colors come out in my coral, probably because they are finally getting calcium to allow them to grow. I've been in the brown stage for a long time now and finally I'm getting out of it with the help of good equipment.

[thedude]

Feeding SPS corals is actually a little bit different then mentioned above.

SPS corals are carnivores with very small mouths. Therefore, phyto plankton does nothing for an sps coral but does stimulate filter feeding micro fauna. SPS corals' mouths are so small that cyclops are actually too big.

Rotifers, oyster eggs, and the 1-3 micron golden pearls are the correct size for an SPS coral.

John

[apedroza]

All my parameters are where they should be my Ca is 450ppm. My phosphates and nitrates are at 0. The bulbs Ive had about 9mos and will replace them soon with reeflux bulbs. The corals are growing and have wonderful PE, I just wish the colors would come out.

[Ram_Puppy]

I hate to be a 'mandarin police officer' but you do realize that unless that brine is freshly hatched it is nutritionally worthless to your mandarin right? just because he eats it and gets a fat belly doesn't mean it is nutritious for him. if he is eating it, great, no get him to move on to something better for him!

As far as feeding corals, I recently started using a product called reefchili that i bought off ebay and it seems to work nicely.

I use a small dipper of it, and add in some cyclopzeeze for some of the larger polyped stuff (& the clowns love it) and will be adding oyster eggs in soon as well when I get them from CB pets. the whole food is engineered for coral, and so far i like it.

I also have a theory about my HIATT filter feeding the coral, but i will go into that in the hiatt section.

[apedroza]

The mandarin is actually eating of the live rock. My tank is crawling wit copepods and amphipods, which is the reason I got him. He has no interest in the brine and mysis. Thanks for looking out for him officer :lol

[Ram_Puppy]

lol, I am happy to hear that. I believe mandarins can be trained to take prepared foods, but there are so many people out there, even experienced reefers, who just don't understand their requirements, I am glad you do.

back on topic. :)

[SueT]

I am currently running 10k reeflux bulbs for the first time and have never had such blues. I have used XM 10k's in the past and thought they made good color but these 10k reeflux are incredible. 250w. I don't think there will ever been another brand bulb used cause these are just this good. Blues are such a deep blue it's almost hard to lok at. Purples are also a nice rich color. The only thing I have a time with is pinks but if I place the frag high I can get a sweet pink coloration. I also feed DT's Oyster eggs.

[klondike4001]

I second the comment on the 10K reeflux bulb, the colors are truly amazing.

[apedroza]

Is there a huge difference between the 10K and the 12K? Is growth faster using one or the other? Also River city aquatics can get these for $59.99. I will be ordering one tomorrow.

[klondike4001]

From what I've heard there isn't a huge growth difference between the 10K and 12K. Color wise there's a noticable difference in the blue.

[apedroza]

I have used 10Ks in the past and although the growth I got out of them was amazing, I had to use a ton of Actinic supplementation to get the blue effect. Does anyone use the 10K reeflux w/out actinics? Any pics? Does the 10K provide enough blue? According to coralvue the 12K is the same as the 10K with a touch more blue.

[hobogato]

yeah, when i was running 10k in my DE fixtures, the tips of some of my corals had a more vivid blue, but the polyps on almost everything were brown. now with the RL 12k in those fixtures, the blue tips have faded slightly, but the polyps on the corals have shifted to lighter colors like bright blue, green, teal, etc. the pic in my avitar is a growth shot of the same tenuis, the first is when i ran the 10k and the second is now.

BTW, that is growth from march to october of this year - about trippled in size, and most of that time was with the 12k bulbs.

[cpreefguy]

hey Anthony,
If I were you Id get the 12k reeflux bulbs and throw 2 36" Super Actinic VHOs in there, you should get awesome color from that combo

[apedroza]

Where would I put the VHOs, along the edges?? Will they get in the way of the MH?? Those lumenarcs cover alot of space on that canopy.

[cpreefguy]

you could mount them at the bottom of the canopy as they are most effective when close to the water

[SueT]

I have heard that growth with the 12k's is slow. With my 10ks I am running them without actinic supplementation and everything looks great. I do not have any brown polyps on my blue corals. The blues are blue. I was concerned about changing from the XM's with great growth to these reeflux but that is not an issue. My growth is easily as good as with the XM's. And the color is way better.

[hobogato]

yeah, im not sure if the color change of the polyps was because of the light change or one of the many other improvements i made to my tank over that time period. i also have as much or more growth now with the 12k as i did with the 10k, but i did add a calc reactor, kalk reactor, and a skimmer that is about 4X more efficient.