Holy grail micromussa help

[Dkmoo]

Hi Alll.

Here is how my HG micromussa looks like now

I got it when it was only a few heads, probably doubled in size in 4 months, so its been growing. However, this is what it looked like initially.

As you can see, there is some color shifting, which i guess is expected, but there is also quite a bit of color loss, which is what im more concerned about - some heads now just show the color on half of the side, and other heads have very faint color. My tank had some instability issues awhile back but stabilized more than a month ago. I'm not sure if the color loss was due to the instability before and if it'll come back, or if it is bc of "bad genes" and that some heads are just like that (when I bought it originally there was 1 head that was "half color" - you dont see it in the original picture bc it was on the other side)

So, now I'm deciding if I should just leave it as is, keep things stable, and hoping colors come back (do they come back? I thought I read somewhere that once mussa lose color it lose them for good). OR, should I frag it to separate the full color from the half/no color heads and keep two colonies, in case its due to the "bad genes" half color head thats spreading and taking over the colony.

Params: 1ppm no3, 0.03 ppm po4, 500 ca, 9 alk, 1350 mg, 8.2ph, 100PAR of reefbright 50/50 strip and AI Prime where its sitting at. I feed heavy an overstocked tank, dose phyto and amino daily,, and spot feed reefroid every 2 days.

Tank is 4 years old

Thanks all, appreciate your inputs.

 

[Spieg]

Do the heads all eat okay? Any change in lighting since you got them?

 

[Dkmoo]

Yes they have great feeding response. In fact just a minute ago I dumped in the amino "soup" and you can already see all the tentacles come out.

I did change upgrade light a few months ago - around the same time as adding the mussa. I added the reefbrite bc my tank is a mixed tank and needed more light for the acros. However, i made sure that it didn't make it too much light for it - as mentioned its sitting in in partial shade under 100PAR. Also, I feel like when it was in the LFS DT it was also under pretty high light. It was a 90 G that had 3 radions and it was in a frag rack half way up the tank.

 

[Spieg]

It's good they're eating well. In my experience the HGMM tend to do better in lower light conditions, but it sounds like you have that set as well. Usually when they change color it tends to be a shade of red, but not in this case. Could just be a reaction to the stability issue you mentioned... they can be slow to recover. You could frag them and see how it goes. Only other thing I can think of would be moving to different water flow.

 

[TerraFerma]

I've kept mine under all kinds of lights and intensities. For me high nutrients and feeding seem to produce the best colors.

 

[Dkmoo]

Thank you both - i think for now i will keep up with the frequent spot feeding and see how it goes in another month or so before deciding if fragging is necessary.