Need Input Acro's a good subject.

Is the coral pic'd your coral? Is this how you received?

There seems to be a group of people that assume that SPS turn brown when introduced to a sysytem and you just have to wait it out. I've spent a lot of money at Jared Butlers house on SPS frags, picked up SPS frags from LFS's and even bought high end frag packs from sellers on other reefing sites. Think I've only had two partially brown out and that was due to placement in my tanks.

I guess the place to start is parameters, full shot of your tank, set-up specifics (tank size, lights (how high they are above water line), skimmer, how you dose, circulation, refugium, sump, etc.)

That's a start to reiterate....

I guess the place to start is parameters, full shot of your tank, set-up specifics (tank size, lights (how high they are above water line), skimmer, how you dose, circulation, refugium, sump, etc.)

Browned out SPS are an indication of excess nutrients in the water, or low lighting. The latter is much easier to fix, but if you've brought it into a good system the latter can be easier to deal with too. I would start with placing it in nice high light area, would good random flow.

I would agree with Snowsrfr'. However, not knowing what type of lighting the coral previously came from, I would caution immediate placement directly under your 400W MH's.

Since coming across this forum, I have acquired many high end pieces from Jared, a large frag pack from jcom, and various other pieces from other local vendors. Of all those pieces, only one came in browned out.

My first piece of advice would be to shop locally from reputable people whenever possible. Truly WYSWYG!
Second piece of advice, always try some form of acclimation. Since upgrading to our new tank, which is running three-400W MH's and two 160W VHO's, I start all new sps pieces along the bottom of the tank. As long as color is maintained (but hopefully and usually improved) I raise the pieces up, carefully monitoring each piece, within a couple of weeks to the desired location. For more sensitive pieces, I also place multiple small pieces of window screen atop my custom built fish screens. This allows further light acclimation while allowing the coral to "settle in" to its permanent location.
In 15 years of reefing, I've only had coral brown out and take months to color back up one time. This was recently during our upgrade. Our coral spent two weeks in a holding tank with no lighting and the next two weeks in the new tank with very minimal lighting. After three months, all coral has colored up with the exception of one.

Your lighting sounds more than sufficient. This leads me to believe you've probably received coral that was not what you originally looked at. This is the beauty of WYSWYG. Once you've acquired a colorful sps, your own tank parameters come into play in keeping it colored up. Keep in mind, at this point, to much light can contribute to a washed out look (even a browned out resemblance).

Lots to think about- hope this helps.

Paul -

Mark Peterson wrote: This is the same coral you PM'd me about. It would be good to share a little of the history of this coral with everyone else. Only occasionally does an SPS coral turn brown when it is moved from one good tank to another, but if I remember correctly, this coral came from a tank that was not so good for SPS and has gone into a tank that has not had any SPS coral in it before. Am I remembering correctly? If you can, please post a current pic of the entire tank and tell us what you have started doing with this coral to help it's recovery.

In the last pic, what are the SPS on the plugs on the left hand margin? How long have they been in there? Most of the SPS frags I see in the tank are brown. Are you getting any polyp extension from the original browned out coral? What size are he Koralias you have? Do you have close up pics of SPS that have been in your tank for a while that are showing good color?

Also, can you answer BobC63's questions above especially the size of ph's, parameters, and skimmer?

Edited by Snowsrfr - September 25 2011 at 2:19pm

Top frag was a dead acro that i fraged some zoas on.(not relevant)

Edited by builderofdreams - September 25 2011 at 2:45pm

I agree your parameters do look ok, however I would increase your alk to closer to 9. What temp does the tank run at? Do you do water changes on this tank, if so how often? What is your nitrate level? High nitrates can cause corals to brown out.