Brown Polyps

[ReefHunter006]

Hi All,
I am looking for some opinions on brown polyps.

i have a few frags like homewrecker and Walt Disney where the frag maintains it’s colors but the polyps are brown. Any ideas why I might be losing just the polyp colors? Provided an example in my walt Disney. Walt Disney is about 1.5 years with me at this point. Paranmeters below.

What should look like:

WD 4 months ago:

WD 1 week ago:

Picture of frag tank:

Params

Homewrecker day one. Colors are the same but polyps are brown.

 

[Duncan62]

Hi All,
I am looking for some opinions on brown polyps.

i have a few frags like homewrecker and Walt Disney where the frag maintains it’s colors but the polyps are brown. Any ideas why I might be losing just the polyp colors? Provided an example in my walt Disney. Walt Disney is about 1.5 years with me at this point. Paranmeters below.

What should look like:

WD 4 months ago:

WD 1 week ago:

Picture of frag tank:

Params

I've been told over there years that it's the coral reacting to to much light. I've got one now that seems very healthy but the polyps were more brown than pink. I moved him over and he's going pink again. You have a beautiful frag. Good luck.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

What is the spectrum and par of your frag tank?

One easy thing to try is to replace some white colors with blue and/or reduce the photoperiod of the white lights and see if that helps.

 

[ReefHunter006]

What is the spectrum and par of your frag tank?

One easy thing to try is to replace some white colors with blue and/or reduce the photoperiod of the white lights and see if that helps.

3 hydra 26s over 3 feet, 2 coral plus t5, 2 blue plus t5. T5 run 10:00-4:00.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

3 hydra 26s over 3 feet, 2 coral plus t5, 2 blue plus t5. T5 run 10:00-4:00.

Might be your coral plus adding too much white. When I ran T5 I had better coloration and almost identical growth with 1 coral plus, 2 blue plus and 1 actinic. 2 coral plus was too much white.

 

[mtraylor]

IMO. When you say you buy a coral at day one and the polyps are brown. That doesn't sound like a problem in your tank per say, but more of a question of where you bought it from or it was stressed during shipping, or maybe a lighting thing that doesn't allow you to see the pop if it was day one. Also could be lineage of the coral.

I have had friends with tanks that they do not seem to be able to keep corals colored properly. Its usually a lack of nutrients and lighting. They would give them to me to house for a couple months (I callled it my dirty water) to color up only to loose the vibrance over time when they got it back. This is not an instant thing. Certainly not a day one. If you buy a vibrant colored coral, it will usually stay vibrant unless if it looses it zoanthology during shipping.

For instance. Your WD. They are usually very vibrant. I have had a couple different WD's. Each have a little variance in color. The BigR WD seems to be a bit more vibrant.

Did you buy the WD online or in person.? If you bought in person and take home you should see close to the same color polyp when you get home if your spectrum of lighting is close to where you saw it. If you bought on line from pretty much all the vendors on the forum here. The coral will most likely be vibrant, and these are some of the best places to get super colored corals.

That being said. You have had it for 1.5 years and it hasnt did much for you. From the pictures I see of your WD. To me , i'm not sure its a WD. Do you have any corals in your frag tank with vibrant polyps? If so please post. I see some very beautiful vibrant corals in your tank, but no close up to see the polyps.

Now the Homewrecker. I see no issues with the polyps on that. It seems to be some vibrance there.

Couple Questions.
1. Lighting on your aquarium. What are the settings?
2. Nutrients. What is your nitrates and phosphates.
3. Do you dose nutrients/amino's.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Couple Questions.
1. Lighting on your aquarium. What are the settings?
2. Nutrients. What is your nitrates and phosphates.
3. Do you dose nutrients/amino's.

He posted all of that information already...

 

[mtraylor]

Takes a while to type all of that, so there was some posts that happened while i was typing. Thank you for staying on top of that for me though. I noticed one I got back to thread. But its good to have fellow reefers looking out.

 

[ReefHunter006]

The issue is typically in the tenuis frags that I see brown polyps. Here are non tenuis frags compared to tenuis.

 

[ReefHunter006]

It’s hard to see but to the left of the ASD rainbow Millie, is a small blue tenuis that is about 2-3 months old in the system. The blues, I feel, are very vibrant on the body, but you can see the polyps a tab bit duller.

In my experience vibrant blues, yellows, and pinks have been the trickiest colors to pull out. Yet, I’m able to get most of those on the body of the frags, meanwhile the polyps seem to brown out. Majority of these frags are 6-18 months.

 

[ReefHunter006]

Might be your coral plus adding too much white. When I ran T5 I had better coloration and almost identical growth with 1 coral plus, 2 blue plus and 1 actinic. 2 coral plus was too much white.

Thank you!

The back two bulbs are schedule for replacement next week. I’ll switch out a coral
Plus for an actinic.

The only reservation I have regarding that is the brown polyps seem to be isolated to the tenuis. Let me know if that changes your opinion at all. Pictures are above.

 

[ReefHunter006]

Takes a while to type all of that, so there was some posts that happened while i was typing. Thank you for staying on top of that for me though. I noticed one I got back to thread. But its good to have fellow reefers looking out.

To answer part of your question earlier, yes I dose aminos.
This is a list of stuff I do over the course of a week. Most is daily, some are not.

Regarding the Walt Disney. It has been one of my fastest growing SPS. Only second to a cali tort. The issue is the brown polyps. Over the last 1.5 years I’ve made two frags which have based out 2-3inches each.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Thank you!

The back two bulbs are schedule for replacement next week. I’ll switch out a coral
Plus for an actinic.

The only reservation I have regarding that is the brown polyps seem to be isolated to the tenuis. Let me know if that changes your opinion at all. Pictures are above.

I would still swap anyway even though it appears to affect the tenius more. Should increase fluorescence in all of the frags.

 

[mtraylor]

From my experience. Blue's, yellows, and pinks are most vibrant under 10k to 14k lighting range. Once you get up to say 20k, the colors will be a bit different...especially the pink. I think you got some good tips on maybe making a bit of a lighting change to assist. its a balance. You can run 10k for part of the day and up to say 20k later in the day.

Also what is the PAR you have on the tenius? I notice that my Tenius love to be up higher getting more PAR to get proper color. In addition to some of the suggestions. i started using the red sea AB+ nutrient/amino's a couple years ago and I can really tell you that my coral colors are exceptional. Especially the polyps . At least to my eyes. LOL. Give it a try.

Your Nitrates are low, so I think you have some room to add nutrients. In my experience. A minimum of 10ppm has been real successful for me to keep really colorful corals in a mixed reefs for me. You can probably dose the AB+ and keep your Nitrates around 5ppm if you like, but i think it will hellp.

 

[mtraylor]

Dangit. Happened again. You answered my questions as I was typing. You read my mind. LOL

 

[mtraylor]

i think the flourscent bulbs will probably give you what you are looking for. That extra pop

 

[ReefHunter006]

From my experience. Blue's, yellows, and pinks are most vibrant under 10k to 14k lighting range. Once you get up to say 20k, the colors will be a bit different...especially the pink. I think you got some good tips on maybe making a bit of a lighting change to assist. its a balance. You can run 10k for part of the day and up to say 20k later in the day.

Also what is the PAR you have on the tenius? I notice that my Tenius love to be up higher getting more PAR to get proper color. In addition to some of the suggestions. i started using the red sea AB+ nutrient/amino's a couple years ago and I can really tell you that my coral colors are exceptional. Especially the polyps . At least to my eyes. LOL. Give it a try.

Your Nitrates are low, so I think you have some room to add nutrients. In my experience. A minimum of 10ppm has been real successful for me to keep really colorful corals in a mixed reefs for me. You can probably dose the AB+ and keep your Nitrates around 5ppm if you like, but i think it will hellp.

I am having real trouble getting nitrates to 10ppm. I am dosing about .5ppm of nitrate daily for the last three weeks and it still isn’t enough. I got nitrates to 5 and then the fell right back to 2ppm. I hate dosing nitrate by its self, but I can’t feed much more without losing control of phosphates. There are no fish in the system either.

 

[mtraylor]

No Fish

Well hats off to you. That is a hard task in itself to get things going with no fish. Your doing great job btw.
I used to dose ESV nitrate. It worked well on my frag tank. What kind are you dosing? Mine got out of hand as I was continuously adding nitrates to hold steady at 20ppm with testing with a nyos test kit. At least I thought so. Then I got a algae outbreak. So I bought a hanna nitrate test kit to only find out that my nitrates were north of 65ppm. BTW colors are amazing on corals lol.

So I had to start steadily reducing them to get them back down where they should have been. So I'm a firm believer in the ESV Nitrate doing the trick. Obviously, I no longer dose them.

I also see you are dosing flatworm stop. Do you have an active outbreak of flatworms, or is this prevention?

 

[ScottB]

I am with @mtraylor on this no fish thing.

Keeping an acro tank going (long term) without fish is an accomplishment in itself. Congratulations. Seriously. I don't see many of those for sure. I think you maybe asking a bit too much from your acros. Sure, photosynthesis serves much of their metabolic requirements (80+%?) but the low, steady and constant presence of fish sourced ammonia is thought to serve as an important nutritional component.

My frag systems are loaded with utility fish.

 

[ReefHunter006]

I am with @mtraylor on this no fish thing.

Keeping an acro tank going (long term) without fish is an accomplishment in itself. Congratulations. Seriously. I don't see many of those for sure. I think you maybe asking a bit too much from your acros. Sure, photosynthesis serves much of their metabolic requirements (80+%?) but the low, steady and constant presence of fish sourced ammonia is thought to serve as an important nutritional component.

My frag systems are loaded with utility fish.

Would dumping skimmate from a heavily loaded fish system be a solution?

I am working very hard to keep my achillies from catching ich and that is why I have kept my frag system fishless for the last year.