why are my corals alwayes turning brown
Printed From: Utah Reefs
Category: Specialized Discussion
Forum Name: SPS
Forum Description: This is the place to ask questions SPS corals.
URL: http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31743
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Topic: why are my corals alwayes turning brown
Posted By: Megan&Jason
Subject: why are my corals alwayes turning brown
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 2:42pm
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it seems every thing i have in my tank turns brown my condi i just got some purple acro red and blue milli they are groing and doinr fine but turn brown ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Replies:
Posted By: CrimsRayne
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 2:49pm
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It is probably that there is something in your tank they either don't like or aren't used to.
What are your tank specs? How long has the tank been running?
What lighting are you putting them under?
How old are the bulbs?
Where are you putting the frags compared to the lights?
Did you acclimate the frags? ------------- "What we know from this hobby is too hard to share with the people who just want to look and not get wet." -Rioreefer "The Puffer Girl" Zoo freak :) West Jordan |
Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 3:01pm
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all my levels are good
running for over 2 years
6 months ago i replaced my bulbs t0 20k just got new 22k last week but put a 14k over my sps to see if it helps
i have bought whole colinies and are high and low
yes i acclimated
it takes a month or twoto start turning colors ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 3:07pm
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is it cus the 20k /22k hqi
is the 14k better for color
and is there something i can add to my tank to help ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Posted By: CrimsRayne
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 3:15pm
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My guess is that it is the new lighting.
I just put new bulbs on my 210g and they are supposed to be 14k, but they look like they aren't even 10k. It takes a while for them to burn in the color.
In the meantime, my corals are looking a little bland when the MH are on, but great under the actinics. ------------- "What we know from this hobby is too hard to share with the people who just want to look and not get wet." -Rioreefer "The Puffer Girl" Zoo freak :) West Jordan |
Posted By: Ryan Thompson
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 5:21pm
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I call this MH syndrome. This is the reason I personally do not like MH. The corals rarely keep their great color IME. So I promote using T5's for coloration. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-07/totm/index.php - http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-07/totm/index.php This guy had MH but couldn't get good color. He switched to T5 and loves the coloration. It could also be casued from filtration. Do you have a skimmer? What kind? Do you dose anything?
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Posted By: drysea
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 5:53pm
| Brown generally indicates there is a lot of zooanthellae. They are really good at getting nutrients out of nutreint poor water and if there is too much they can grow really thick and overpower the color pigments. Also many of the pretty colors everyone is after are protective pigments. More shortwave spectrum (high energy) light brings those colors out. I have run MHs for years and never had a problem with coloration not sure I'd agree with the T5 comments. I would like to know more about the theory though. |
Posted By: Ryan Thompson
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 6:55pm
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If you read through that article he states his opinion of why T5 is the better choice in lighting. My theory is based upon tanks I have seen. I just have never seen a MH tank compare with a well lit T5 tank. Granted in both cases I believe you must use the best of the best though. You can't go buy the Current USA T5 stuff and have it compare with the ATI or Geisemann products. And you certainly can not get something off ebay for cheap and expect it to keep up with the good stuff. MH creates shadows more than T5's do. Therefore tissue penetration and better penetration overall is found using T5. Now I don't have any scientific evidence, again this is all my belief. I let my eyes decide for themselves what I like more. To each his own...
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Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 7:10pm
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first of my tank is a 90g with 200+pounds of rock
my light is a aqau medic 2x250 watt hqi with 2 54w t5 acnics
this is a reacuring problem i have had since i started salt 2+ years a go
i have what i like to think of as a good fitration system
30 gallon sump with 3 chambers a nice fuge packed with macro algeas and pods
my skimmer is a off brand but just like the euro reef rated for 250g
i had a asm g2 skimmer in there first but smithched it over to my 150 fowlr
personly i think this one workes better
what is this zooanthellae. and how can i fix it ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Posted By: Sculpin
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 8:56pm
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Ya know I'm glad you posted this because I've herd of coral switching zooanthellae and changing their color and was wondering what that would be like. To my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong), zooanthellea are a perfectly natural and necessary part of photosynthetic coral. They are symbiotic algae that live inside coral and benefit from the coral and the coral benefit from them. The zooanthellea is what gives coral their color, otherwise many would just be white (and die). My guess is, your intense lighting is causing the corals to either pack in a bunch of zooanthellae (what drysea siad) or adopt a more tolerable zooanthellae to it's environment and both would probably change the color. I have almost the exact same lighting as you but over a 235 and I have not experience this kind of issue. I would like to know what a pro thinks though... Adam... Mike... Mark... anyone? Sculpin
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Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 9:06pm
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thank you for the post i two would like to hear from a pro
? maybe i should rais the lights ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Posted By: drysea
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 9:11pm
| Zooanthellae are photosynthetic microbes that live in the tissues of the corals. Coral gets much of their nutrition from these little guys. Zooanthellae are what actually use all the fancy lighting we provide. The are a dinoflagellets which are a special "algae". They use more blue light where traditional algae favor a more yellow light. This is due to differences in the type of chlorophyll (light catching pigment) used by the difffernt algae. If your corals bleach they are sheding all the zoooanthellae and when they are brown you have lots of zooanthellae, it doesn't mean your corals are unhealthy. Zooanthellae are highly specialized, what is pretty in one tank isn't in the next. Sometimes an "ugly" coral will color up once it is in a new tank, and the opossite is also true. I have had corals go brown when they first went in by tank then over the course of months they colored up and took of. I atribute that to a zooanthellae swap peroid. I don't know that to be the case but it makes some sense. |
Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 9:42pm
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i have noticed with the hammer and frogspawn i get it seemes to look better in my tank than the one i got it from but sps is oppisite ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Posted By: dustponds10
Date Posted: February 27 2009 at 10:14pm
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You know alot of the time I have found that when I frag a coral or when I get a frag from some one else it typically turns brown and some of them have taked as long a 6 months to color up. I didnt read the whole thread but this could be the case as well. I hope you figure out what is going on. ------------- 120 ASM G-3 T-5 lighting 130 frag system T-5 lighting asm G-1x |
Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: February 28 2009 at 6:14pm
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any expert wanting to chime in ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Posted By: cl2ysta1
Date Posted: February 28 2009 at 6:42pm
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brown is almost always a sign of too many nutrients in the water.
it could also be insufficient lighting. I can always tell when it's time to change our bulbs because my favorite purple rim monti will start to turn brown. usually after a week under new bulbs it goes right back ------------- I <3 Boxers Achilles tang lover |
Posted By: cl2ysta1
Date Posted: February 28 2009 at 6:48pm
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you stated your filtration what about tank maintenance.. how often do you do water changes? if you dont do you dose elements? when you say all levels are fine.. what is your mag, alk, calcium? ------------- I <3 Boxers Achilles tang lover |
Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: February 28 2009 at 8:38pm
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i dose alk and calcium
i do a 15 gallon water change 2-3 times a month
i add 3 gallons of ro water daily do to evaporation
tomorrow i will do some tests and post the results
------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |
Posted By: cl2ysta1
Date Posted: March 01 2009 at 8:11pm
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any results? ------------- I <3 Boxers Achilles tang lover |
Posted By: CrimsRayne
Date Posted: March 01 2009 at 8:18pm
Too many???
Why is that a bad thing? ------------- "What we know from this hobby is too hard to share with the people who just want to look and not get wet." -Rioreefer "The Puffer Girl" Zoo freak :) West Jordan |
cl2ysta1 wrote:Posted By: Corey Price
Date Posted: March 01 2009 at 11:00pm
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Honestly, it could be a bunch of factors. Lighting, nutrition, trace elements, etc. I've read a bunch of anecdotal information about doing this or that, using this bulb, swapping to T5's, using Zeovit, dosing different additives, etc. You name it, there's someone who's had success with it. So, I'd first make sure that you have good water parameters. High nitrates are bad, but near zero nitrates could also be bad. How about phosphate levels? Do you have wild temperature, PH, or salinity swings? On the same note, how are alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium levels? Have you tried bigger or more frequent water changes? It sounds like you do plenty. In the case of zoanthids, are they getting enough iodine (anecdotal info there)? Next, I'd look at lighting. Are the corals getting enough usable light? 20k bulbs usually have lower PAR than a decent 14k or a 10k bulb. You might want to try changing to a higher kelvin bulb- if so, try a Phoenix bulb first, and then maybe an AB or Megachrome 10k. Brown corals could mean that they're compensating for low light by allowing the zooxanthellae production to increase, slowly turning brown. Or, they're getting too much light and the same algae is going crazy in their cells. I doubt it's the latter with 20k bulbs, but I could always be wrong. I thought that color pigmentation, etc. was a BIG topic and that Dana Riddle was really getting into this. As I remember, coloration of corals has also been linked to what depth they were growing at. I seem to remember that red corals usually came from depth, and so on. The above post is just my opinion. |
Posted By: Corey Price
Date Posted: March 01 2009 at 11:13pm
Here's an early image of my tank. Here's a later image, showing the tank covered in algae but still with decent coloration. Note that the first picture is using an AB 10k bulb, and the latter is using Phoenix 14k bulbs. The point is that my water quality was not great in the last stage of the tank's life and coral coloration wasn't the best either.  |
Posted By: Corey Price
Date Posted: March 01 2009 at 11:22pm
Here's a side shot of before the algae takeover. Coral coloration went downhill from there. It deteriorated until Anthony Calfo said that I needed more fish to pollute the tank, making more nitrates, and increasing coloration. Although I think there may have been some truth to that, my tank had algal issues and I was hesitant on adding more fish. I miss that tank...  |
Posted By: Megan&Jason
Date Posted: March 01 2009 at 11:31pm
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sorry i am slaking on the tests my sister borowed my test kits and havn't gone over to get them yet but thanks for the replies i will get them asap ------------- Red sea 650 and two 35g red sea all for sale |