How to improve coral colors

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

Heres a pic of my biocube. It's been up and running since December. The corals all seem to be happy and puffy but i feel like the colors are pretty blah compared to what I see at the LFS. The two acans on the rock were a bright red at the LFS but now just a rusty orange in my tank. Is this just a shortcoming of the stock biocube lights? My water params seem okay.

Nitrates 16
Phosphates .06
Calcium 450
Alk 10.9
Magnesium 1480
SG 1.026
PH 8.1

 

[jsker]

Grate looking tank, trace elements. There are several products out that you can use. The simplest was to add trace elements would to add a small amount of mineral salts link to your water changes.

 

[Salty1962]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-help-my-pale-colors-thread.271636/#post-3262561

 

[Evan West]

Heres a pic of my biocube. It's been up and running since December. The corals all seem to be happy and puffy but i feel like the colors are pretty blah compared to what I see at the LFS. The two acans on the rock were a bright red at the LFS but now just a rusty orange in my tank. Is this just a shortcoming of the stock biocube lights? My water params seem okay.

Nitrates 16
Phosphates .06
Calcium 450
Alk 10.9
Magnesium 1480
SG 1.026
PH 8.1

Also yes likely the lights, ofthen the LFS will have the lights super blue or have a lot of UV and Blue tuned into the lights, if you dont have that then they just dont floresce as much. Would put money on it that if you put a light with more UV and Blue that they would pop bright red.

 

[CodyRVA]

+1 on lights. If you're doing routine water changes I doubt the issue is trace elements. I don't do water changes at all and I don't have any issues in that area, but who knows. could be worth a shot.

 

[OREGONIC]

+1 for better lighting, i have seen several posts of people customizing the hood to fit better lights. I dose fuel 2 times a week and have noticed a difference in color, took a few weekes before I noticed a difference tho. Also i have found i seem to get better color with a lower alk level, i keep mine between 8.0-8.4.

 

[CodyRVA]

Also i have found i seem to get better color with a lower alk level, i keep mine between 8.0-8.4.

Wonder if this is relevant to a low nutrient system?

 

[madweazl]

Also yes likely the lights, ofthen the LFS will have the lights super blue or have a lot of UV and Blue tuned into the lights, if you dont have that then they just dont floresce as much. Would put money on it that if you put a light with more UV and Blue that they would pop bright red.

Lights in the "red" spectrum tend to make reds and oranges more intense in the tank.

 

[OREGONIC]

Wonder if this is relevant to a low nutrient system?

My nitrates are around 8-10 ppm and phosphate .04, not to low. I do get slightly slower growth then i used to when i kept my alk in the 9.5 range but the color was not as nice.

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

I'm thinking about getting the steve's LEDs biocube upgrade kit. The colors don't seem to get worse over time. They seem blah right from the beginning.

 

[West1]

I'm thinking about getting the steve's LEDs biocube upgrade kit. The colors don't seem to get worse over time. They seem blah right from the beginning.

I was torn between steves LEDs and the Large Nanobox for biocube. Went with Nanobox and LOOOVED them!

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

I was torn between steves LEDs and the Large Nanobox for biocube. Went with Nanobox and LOOOVED them!

What made you decide on the nanobox? I have the 32 biocube, and the kit from Steve's LEDs seems slightly easier to install.

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

Also yes likely the lights, ofthen the LFS will have the lights super blue or have a lot of UV and Blue tuned into the lights, if you dont have that then they just dont floresce as much. Would put money on it that if you put a light with more UV and Blue that they would pop bright red.

I do have the blue lights on at the same time as the white, but I suspect they just aren't blue enough.

 

[OREGONIC]

Not sure how adjustable the lights you listed are, but i have seen several people us AI prime lights and the adjustability on all the AI lights are amazing. Here is one example, makes colors really pop.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/installing-ai-prime-into-14-g-biocube-hood.204597/

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

Not sure how adjustable the lights you listed are, but i have seen several people us AI prime lights and the adjustability on all the AI lights are amazing. Here is one example, makes colors really pop.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/installing-ai-prime-into-14-g-biocube-hood.204597/

That's an interesting idea. I was actually wanting to get a kessil because I love the shimmer but hubby wants to keep the hood. Never thought about just cutting a hole in it.

 

[West1]

What made you decide on the nanobox? I have the 32 biocube, and the kit from Steve's LEDs seems slightly easier to install.

At the time, I went with steves LED because I read a few threads about steves LED's giving problems. I am sure there are a lot of good threads tho. Nanobox seemed to be more active in improving their product with revisions and Dave (Nanobox) seemed more attentive to my emails. In the end I actually had an issue with nanobox that was due to the 3rd party blink card. Dave replaced it and I never had issues with it again. The app provides pretty cool features from lightning, actual weather conditions based on region selected from the globe and different lighting features. Read up in nanobox.com. There is a ton of info in a nano reef blog (not sure if I can post so I wont specify) and nanobox seems to rock the boat with small setups.

This is just my opinion, I was extremely happy with the support I received from Dave and the information you can find. The LEDs are very nice and I thought they were easy to install (nanobox has a step by step youtuve video which made it easier with Pause and Play).

On another note, some corals seem very close to the hammers, no ill effect with stinging?

 

[Evan West]

That's an interesting idea. I was actually wanting to get a kessil because I love the shimmer but hubby wants to keep the hood. Never thought about just cutting a hole in it.

Love kessil! I use all Kessil on my tanks, super simple and looks amazing. Cant go wrong IMO, check out my build thred in my signature below to see my tank under Kessil lights. Im bad at taking pictures so they are all really dark to what they actually look like

 

[West1]

Love kessil! I use all Kessil on my tanks, super simple and looks amazing. Cant go wrong IMO, check out my build thred in my signature below to see my tank under Kessil lights. Im bad at taking pictures so they are all really dark to what they actually look like

Cant go wrong with kessil. I am assuming the OP wants to keep the biocube lid and would have trouble mixing the biocube and kessil together without making things complicated.
I thought about kessil when I first tried my build, it gave me brain freeze lol.

 

[LovesDogs_CatsRokay]

Cant go wrong with kessil. I am assuming the OP wants to keep the biocube lid and would have trouble mixing the biocube and kessil together without making things complicated.
I thought about kessil when I first tried my build, it gave me brain freeze lol.

Yes I do want to keep the lid. I'm planning a Red Sea 350 in the future, and that will definitely have kessil!

 

[Evan West]

Yes I do want to keep the lid. I'm planning a Red Sea 350 in the future, and that will definitely have kessil!

Much simpler than the Radions, those things are awesome but for simplicity you cant been kessil