Browned out millepora

[Chris Adams]

I have a coupe millepora frags which I received a few months back and I will be darned if I can get them to color up. They will show slight hints of color in new growth within base but nothing significant. Great polyp extension

All other Acro types are doing well. Even some browned out 1's colored up but not the milleporas

Couple questions for those who have millepora, and dealt with browned out frags

1) If your tank is to clean do you find they brown out? My Nitrates and Phos register as 0 and I have no algae. I will say I do need to get the ultra low Phos tester
2) Do you find the mille to be more temper-mental than other Acros?
3) If you have had browned out millepora what did you do to get it to color back up

Some Params
ph 8.0 - 8.25
SG 1.026
ALK 9.9
Cal 430
Mag 1280

Potassium, Iodine within acceptable range last checked
5gl WC weekly
Kalk reactor 1tbsp every 5 days

I am happy with everything else but these have me stumped

 

[AdamNC]

In my tank I find having a lower Alk of about 8-8.4dKH shows better colors then having 9-10dKH for all my corals including the acros, montis and millis.

 

[Tahoe61]

Any stress will cause mine to brown, even a slight elevation in temp sometimes.

I agree I see better color with a dkh 8-9.

 

[ReeferBean]

Millis like a lot of light and flow, where do you have yours placed?

 

[Chris Adams]

This is a 38im with MP10 so pretty heavy flow throughout
Browned out 1's 1 is high flow high up and 1 medium flow medium level in tank.
Have a couple that are ok but think they could be better

Guess maybe the millis will need to go because everything else in my tank looks great. Wish I had my old camera lens to get you pics.

I would not mind running my alk lower but I battle issues with low PH(will drop below 7.6 and never reach 8 if I do not use kalk) and major ALK and CAL swings.
With the Kalk at least things are stable. Tried doing manual dosing but was just a mess.
I have pretty much exhausted solutions to low PH and only thing that may help is a bigger skimmer to draw in more air from outside or/also add a sump but not ready for that.

1 of the browned out milli are behind spngode you cannot see it and other is all the way to right behind the digi

 

[Tahoe61]

Did you mention lighting?

I would try increasing the % of LED's if that is fixture type.
You did not mention any carbon dosing?
Want to go ULNS?

Do your corals looked stress at 7.6, everything looks healthy from the image. Maybe work on the above and forget about the pH for a couple weeks.

 

[Chris Adams]

Tried increasing lights( I am running 100% blue 30% white peak day currently) and Joe/Red planet lost base colors and other corals(birdsnest, cyphastrea, leptastrea etc etc) not real happy(got white up to 65% over few month period). Old pictures at lower setting is what really made me realize how much color things had lost. I am considering adding couple T5 to led configuration and maybe that would help.

I have had to frag out a few of my older corals so things are growing well.

No carbon dosing at this point trying to keep things As simple as possible.
No I am wondering if ULN will cause the browning?? thoughts???

Started feeding tank more and other corals showing noticeable signs that they appreciate it. I would like to register some nitrates and Phos, will run test tomorrow as it has been a couple weeks.

Oh ya the tank gets all ticked off if I allow the PH to drop. If I even go 1 extra day without adding tbsp of kalk PH will hit 7.8 range at night and 8.0 that day if I am lucky and that night down to 7.6 range. I have to talk to her, I mean the tank to treat me right ha ha ha

Reason I really use the kalk is to stabilize the ALK and CAL more so than the PH benefit. They will drop like no tomorrow without the kalk

Literally when dosing and trying to use buffers etc it was a roller coaster and I was doing more harm than benefit. I was going to go the dosing route via jebao but found kalk took care of stability issues.

I will give it a couple more months on those milli then sell them off cheap. I can always use the room and I have my eye on a few pieces at Unique and Battle Corals so guess I will ride it out.

Appreciate everyone input

 

[markalot]

I can only guess but I think you might see some improvements feeding more, especially if some corals go pale with any increase in lighting. Reef Roids has always worked well for me, as has simply feeding the fish a lot more smaller meals.

 

[luke33]

I have quite a few mille's and many were frags when I first received them. I would say it took quite a few to color up and start growing. 2-3mths for most to fully color up to show there potential. I think Mille's like a lower light compared to other acro's, but they can be adjusted to higher light, it just takes a longer period of time. The only Mille I can't get to show any color other than brown is a cherry corals Angels and demons mille. Its quite the pain, but I will keep trying until I figure it out. But ideally I like to keep them between 300-400 par, 8-9alk, .05 phos, 450calc. Good luck and don't give up as Mille's are awesome.

 

[Bones]

This can be a tricky question to answer do to the many variables. Some acros can take a lot longer to color up than others and some won't really start showing color until they are fully encrusted. Reading through your thread it seems like you have the basic culprits covered, lighting (to much/to little), unstable parameters, high PO4. A few things to consider though, some corals take time to acclimate to your tank both lighting and levels. If you have had any Alk or temp swings, PO4 crept up on you (even just once), it can stress the coral and it's like starting over on coloring them up. The last thing I want to mention is over stripping the water column or making your tank "too clean". For example If you run oversized skimmer, GFO, and carbon dose, you could be removing to much of the nutrients and trace elements starving the corals. Up until this past year I always did everything in my power to keep my NO3 and PO4 as close to zero as possible. Now I strive for low levels of both in my SPS tank and the colors have never been better. Sorry for the long post, hopefully some of it was helpful.

 

[Chris Adams]

Hey great stuff everyone I really do appreciate the input and experience that backs it up. Got these back in February so it has been a few months. We all strive for stability while still trying to make improvements. From the comments especially Bones last 1, I am probably the issue. Sounds like they are a bit touchy. Think my tank is probably about 1year 6months old so still fairly young. I just got done with my light intensity tests couple months ago and there were a couple minor ALK swings where I noticed a little bit of burnt tip on my garf, and my hawkins base discolored(both are colored back up now).

Also I do run real clean..tooo clean I feel(fixing that). Was using GFO reactor(stopped couple months back but do hang a bag everyonce and a while), also hang carbon every few weeks.

So I do full battery of tests today and allow tank to do its thing and check back in a month

again thanks for all the input

 

[Bones]

One other thing I might add is if they are maricultured pieces or 1st gen. cultured they are not nearly as forgiving as pieces that have long been removed from the ocean. I'm willing to bet your garf and Hawkins recovered in less than 2 weeks. I would suggest either adding kalk water to your ATO water or dosing, or even better both. Until you can get all levels consistently stable your going to keep having this issue. I hope to see some pics of colorful milles in the next few months. Keep at it GL.

 

[Chris Adams]

One other thing I might add is if they are maricultured pieces or 1st gen. cultured they are not nearly as forgiving as pieces that have long been removed from the ocean. I'm willing to bet your garf and Hawkins recovered in less than 2 weeks. I would suggest either adding kalk water to your ATO water or dosing, or even better both. Until you can get all levels consistently stable your going to keep having this issue. I hope to see some pics of colorful milles in the next few months. Keep at it GL.

I am not sure if they are maricultured, got from AquaSD everything else was fine except mille which are brown but great polyp extension.

already use kalk and #'s are steady at this point

 

[NicksMixedReef]

I was the same way with millis until I started to feed a lot more

 

[Peng]

High nutrients turn corals brown is probably common in the older times but not now. If your NO3 is <15 PO4<0.09 I would exclude the possibility of browning due to nutrients. Like other people said, it has a lot to do with the stress level on the coral. Eliminating nutrients is a really bad idea in my opinion. I don't know since when the "undetectable NO3 and PO4" theory got popular, but I'm against it with my experience of pursuing it which resulted starvation and loss of thousands of dollars of corals. Maricultured species WILL brown out in a new environment and later get its colors back. It is a protection mechanism and is completely normal.