Color

[janos]

Hi to all.Would like to know how to give more color to the corals?
Thank you

 

[Crabs McJones]

Hi to all.Would like to know how to give more color to the corals?
Thank you

There are many many factors that come into play with this question. Water quality, lighting, food source (target feeding) there isn't really a "right" answer. Could you give us more information? Specifically what types of corals, your water parameters and lighting setup? Also maybe some pictures of the corals in question.

 

[janos]

Hi i try to make some pics now.PH:8.3 KH:8.6 NO3:40 PO4: 0.3 light is G4 pro Feed fish every day,some coral got feeding to,not all.SPS got nothing, tank is 65 gal, sump is 30gal

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi to all.Would like to know how to give more color to the corals?
Thank you

Everyone wants to know that, but depending on the corals and what they look like now, there can be many answers, or no correct answer.

Is there a particular coral you are concerned with?

 

[janos]

Hi Randy thank you to chime in,no specific coral but all the sps start to loose color since i dosing Hydrogen Peroxide for the Dinos. Could be because of that but never heard before.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Dino’s often thrive is very low nutrients. Did you get them when the nitrate and phosphate were as high as now, or did you recently raise them?

 

[janos]

No Randy unfortunately i try the ULNS my NO3 was 5 and the PO4 was 0.0 with Hanna PPb. This is when started and now i try 4 week long to stop somehow ,dosing NO3 and PO4 Sould just blame my self,am id the hobby for 20 year long never care about NO3 PO4 if your system is running good sould not try something else.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The increased nutrients now may help color up the corals, and if you are not dosing any trace elements you might look into trying one.

 

[janos]

Thank you Randy i scare to dose anything but if you think it is safe to try i would try.Like i told 20 year in aquarium always read you article never had any problem. Still least i do not have problem wit Alk,Calcium and Mag, should try with one trace first?Have full line AF product .

 

[Samina]

No Randy unfortunately i try the ULNS my NO3 was 5 and the PO4 was 0.0 with Hanna PPb. This is when started and now i try 4 week long to stop somehow ,dosing NO3 and PO4 Sould just blame my self,am id the hobby for 20 year long never care about NO3 PO4 if your system is running good sould not try something else.

Not to go off topic, but did increasing your nutrient levels help with the dinos outbreak in your tank?

 

[janos]

Hi if you read thru the Dino tread,and Hydrogen Peroxide tread,i have 50/50 chance.Think better than nothing

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It's very hard to judge coral colors from pictures because lighting makes a big difference in appearance even if the coral is identical.

 

[janos]

Hi Randy thank you the pics are wrong because the blue color but i think can do nothing about that.My phone have no color correction like a camera

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I understand. Even in person, colors are hard to judge, and new corals very often do not look the way that did in a sales advertisement due to lighting issues.

 

[mstockmaster]

Not to go off topic, but did increasing your nutrient levels help with the dinos outbreak in your tank?

I can chime in on this, I know when my po4 hits zero because that's when dinos flare up. Once I get nutrients up the dinos recede. I've done this cycle three times now, like clockwork.

 

[jda]

The easiest way to get colors are, in this order 1). best lights with widest spectrum and coverage, 2). parameters stable, 3). change water and 4). feed your fish.

If you are lacking on any of these, then you have to work extra hard somewhere else to make up for this, IMO.

 

[janos]

Thank you for the replay light is G4 Pro new,parameters almost stable,do not change water because the Dino tread is 90% suggest do not change the water until Dino is present.Like mstockmaster said when nutrient hit the 0.0 mark Dino come out.

 

[jda]

IMO, adding a few T5s to your Radion will do more for color than anything that you can do with water chemistry.

 

[Finhead]

I agree with @jda , best thing I did on my new tank for my SPS was add 4 T5's to my Hydra 26's. So much better growth and coloring.

 

[jda]

I am going to get on a little bit of a soapbox here, but the standard crutch excuse that LED folks use with bad color is that parameters, stability, etc, all matter. While this is 100% true, the premise is a red herring. The lights outweigh all of the others added-together, IMO, but you need the other stuff too. If you had a choice to have the best water parameters on the planet, the best lights or the most consistent tank on the planet, choose the lights... the other stuff can wander a bit when you have the best lights and you can just have average water quality and stability. G4 alone are not even close to the best lights for most corals, but especially acropora - too much spectrum missing, too many shadows and too large of a gradient from the hot middle and cold outside area. I don't think that anybody has ever added T5s to their LEDs and were sorry. My apologies for the soapbox.

No3 at 40 and PO4 .03 is hardly nothing. Have you checked recently? I have not had a dino outbreak since my tank was done cycling (the whole way including NO3 => N gas) and I keep my N at .1 and P at .oo5-.01, but I do not use any media to do this, just change water and have lots of sand and rock. IMO, driving N and P low with GFO, LC, organic carbon, etc. can do this, but not so much natural methods like fuge or turf scrubbers, etc. since they always seem to leave enough to drive the equilibrium and not truly take them to zero. If you are using media, then stopping might be the best way to have the dinos go away.