Flow to increase coloration?

[Charlie’s Frags]

There is no doubt that MH produce better coloration than LED. I think that there is a ceiling where you can only get to 75-80% with LED, but some people never get this high anyway, never see the difference or know enough to matter, or do know the difference and just do not care. The OP is seeing this... it is not reasonable to expect the LED to do the same thing that his MH did - he might not care or he might like what he has no better, but it will never be the same. There is no way around this... if he wants to get to where he was before, he will have to get MH again... he has seen the difference, knows the difference and there is not unknowing what he knows.

For most, they will never even get to the 75-80% ceiling, so who really cares.

BTW - you cannot put a LED to a 14k spectrum and expect it to look like a 14k Halide bulb does. They will just look different.

If anybody is ever in Boulder and wants to stop by, I have NEVER had anybody come to my house and leave thinking that their Radions, Hydras, Kessils, etc. ever had the same color that my MH did. Nobody. They have nice tanks, but they all can see what I mean about hitting a ceiling. You have to use the MH in your home to know the difference, much like the OP does.

Three might be some good reasons to not use MH, even if you know that they are better... the apps, couch control, thunderstorms, etc... but with the advent of RB LED bars, you can always black-light some MH grown corals which pop even more that LED grown corals under the RB/black light lighting.

I have doubts. Let’s have a challenge. Cut a 1” frag of your sc op

and we can compare it to my 1” sc op in 6
months

This pic was taken with no filter at my 12k setting btw

 

[jda]

That is about four months to a 3.5" frag. See where you are in four months. I am not fragging anything to show anybody something - if you wanna believe that your stuff grows fast, then believe it. I will post a photo in a few more months and you can see.

Your WD growth is slow, IMO... now if you fragged it some, then that changes things a LOT, fragging slows stuff down quite a bit. If not, then you should have at least a baseball sized hunk in a year, if not softball sized. A. Tenuis grows fast.

Here is a little over a year of Fox Flame growth, which grows similar to A. Tenuis in my tanks. You should be seeing dynamic growth after a year, unless you are fragging all the time and your one year old Tenuis should look similar to this. Middle photo is about five months.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

That is about four months to a 3.5" frag. See where you are in four months. I am not fragging anything to show anybody something - if you wanna believe that your stuff grows fast, then believe it. I will post a photo in a few more months and you can see.

Your WD growth is slow, IMO... now if you fragged it some, then that changes things a LOT, fragging slows stuff down quite a bit. If not, then you should have at least a baseball sized hunk in a year, if not softball sized. A. Tenuis grows fast.

Here is a little over a year of Fox Flame growth, which grows similar to A. Tenuis in my tanks. You should be seeing dynamic growth after a year, unless you are fragging all the time and your one year old Tenuis should look similar to this. Middle photo is about five months.

You’re comparing 2 different species but thats fine if you don’t want to take this opportunity to prove it. I have some other species with more impressive growth but I picked corals we both have.

 

[bubbaque]

If metal halide grew and colored corals the best then you’d think people who rely on growth and color for their livelihood would use it. WWC and TSA rely LED to to color and grow. Battlecorals also has mentioned he’s seen certain colors show after putting them under led. We know Jda loves MH and will say anything about how great they are but if he tried led he’d see better color in his corals.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

That is about four months to a 3.5" frag. See where you are in four months. I am not fragging anything to show anybody something - if you wanna believe that your stuff grows fast, then believe it. I will post a photo in a few more months and you can see.

Your WD growth is slow, IMO... now if you fragged it some, then that changes things a LOT, fragging slows stuff down quite a bit. If not, then you should have at least a baseball sized hunk in a year, if not softball sized. A. Tenuis grows fast.

Here is a little over a year of Fox Flame growth, which grows similar to A. Tenuis in my tanks. You should be seeing dynamic growth after a year, unless you are fragging all the time and your one year old Tenuis should look similar to this. Middle photo is about five months.

Seems like it should be a cake walk for you then.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

That is about four months to a 3.5" frag. See where you are in four months. I am not fragging anything to show anybody something - if you wanna believe that your stuff grows fast, then believe it. I will post a photo in a few more months and you can see.

Your WD growth is slow, IMO... now if you fragged it some, then that changes things a LOT, fragging slows stuff down quite a bit. If not, then you should have at least a baseball sized hunk in a year, if not softball sized. A. Tenuis grows fast.

Here is a little over a year of Fox Flame growth, which grows similar to A. Tenuis in my tanks. You should be seeing dynamic growth after a year, unless you are fragging all the time and your one year old Tenuis should look similar to this. Middle photo is about five months.

You’re always saying you’ll challenge anyone with your reefing approach, so here’s your chance. Take a 1” frag of your sc op and put it in your 60 gallon cube.

FS: Jason Fox cat eye zoa colony

At least 75 polyps. These are tall and large! Colony is softball size. Only trades I would be looking for right now is RR 65 to 75 gallon tanks with stands. $250 OBO. JF sells these for $59 per 4 polyps. Sent from my Moto Z (2) using MASC mobile app

www.marinecolorado.org

Which I noticed the 1 acro you have in there has not grown much. Definitely not as much as my Disney did in 4-6 months. And oh btw, IMO, your sps could use some color.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Please don't let this devolve into a flame war....

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Please don't let this devolve into a flame war....

 

[C. Eymann]

Edit- no need to start a flame war

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Edit- no need to start a flame war

Just an innocent challenge

 

[C. Eymann]

Just an innocent challenge

This thread is supposed to be about flow in relation to coloration, not a halide vs LEDs/blue vs white and debating over growth rates of different methods and lighting.

Let's steer this in a more appropriate direction?
How about this
more Flow =denser skeletons in some species ? Denser skeleton slower/smaller new growth areas/patches? (lots of corals exhibit their brightest color accents on the areas new growth /tips ??

thoughts?

 

[SeaDweller]

Actually now that I’m looking at a bunch of other pics I think I’ll be reducing that white period a bit.

Why?

 

[SeaDweller]

Alright gentlemen, settle down... settle down, now I’m caught up and out of popcorn, I was about to eat thru the bowl with the last dozen posts! Let’s get back to the real question in this thread: how do I pull pinks from my HW?!

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Why?

Lost color in several of my babies

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Give it some time with the whites and go slow. If you search around and try to visit some of the guys who have done this for a long time and are using led at full power with many fixtures you can see what everyone is talking about, it just takes a lot of time with some tanks.
Honestly I like the look under the whites better, I just think your seeing lightening from the change and i bet in time it will recover and brighten. But whatever floats your boat

C eymann, that’s a good point about flow. I have seen strong random flow help branching tighten and thicken and on smaller corals it sometimes does help colors come out in the beginning because there are more growth tips on some species under more flow. I notice more tips come out on colonies sometimes when I get them from a low flow tank and put them in mine.

 

[C. Eymann]

C eymann, that’s a good point about flow. I have seen strong random flow help branching tighten and thicken and on smaller corals it sometimes does help colors come out in the beginning because there are more growth tips on some species under more flow. I notice more tips come out on colonies sometimes when I get them from a low flow tank and put them in mine.

I think that you hit the nail on the head of what I was trying to say.
I will say that for the genus acropora, the right "type" of flow is soooo important! I saw this when way back in the day (pre jebao/vortech)when I switched from having two MJ mods fighting eachother for creating random currents, to finally saving up/switching to a Tunze 6101 on single controller on pulse.
After switching to the Tunze with those broad surges in flow it created every 8sec, I saw the health, growth and coloration of my Acropora and SPS in general start to really thrive.
I think that the flow dynamics helped the corals health a lot, thus growth rate and coloration improved as well.

 

[Cully]

Ok so on that note, As in my OP, I have 2 vortechs on the back walls as pictured. I added the 3rd to the right side wall. I hate The way they look on side panels but the tank sits in a corner of an L shaped common area so it’s less detestable. It’s aimed right into the stream of the other 2.

The 2 back ones are on random reef crest. I put The 3rd on the same setting but Im considering Putting it on one of the pulse modes. Give bigger bursts of chaotic flow vs a generalized lower level of chaos.

Thoughts?

Some GREAT! Information in this thread. I’m a Reef Central throw back. Rarely post here. Refreshing to see some good natured discussion with like minded folks (even if opinions differ). Appreciate the contributions!

 

[C. Eymann]

Ok so on that note, As in my OP, I have 2 vortechs on the back walls as pictured. I added the 3rd to the right side wall. I hate The way they look on side panels but the tank sits in a corner of an L shaped common area so it’s less detestable. It’s aimed right into the stream of the other 2.

The 2 back ones are on random reef crest. I put The 3rd on the same setting but Im considering Putting it on one of the pulse modes. Give bigger bursts of chaotic flow vs a generalized lower level of chaos.

Thoughts?

Some GREAT! Information in this thread. I’m a Reef Central throw back. Rarely post here. Refreshing to see some good natured discussion with like minded folks (even if opinions differ). Appreciate the contributions!

Do you run the 2 reefcrest mode anti sync ?
That was my favorite setting for my 2.

If I added a third I'd probably do the same, put it on a pulse mode, or maybe even nutrient export mode.

Very beautiful reef you have btw!

I thought I recognized your username.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yea I would do pulse and nutrient export mode would be my second go too. I used the screen name piper27 on the other board but haven’t posted there in a long time now. Honestly I haven’t even been on my local board for coming on two years. I may go back once things grow out so I can sell frags.

 

[bubbaque]

@Dana Riddle how do you feel about the test tanks brs did showing flow did not have corals grow faster or slower? Their tanks showed the amount of flow didn’t matter. I know you say their is a “barrier” around the coral the needs flow to push it away.