Purple SPS looking Green

EricTheRed · Oct 31, 2013

I was wondering if some of you expert sps keepers had some advice and why several different acro's of mine that should be purple, have a lot of green in them. For instance, I have a purple nana and only the tips are purple and the body is green. Also, I have a $500 efflo and the rim used to be purple with the interior green (as it is supposed to be) but now the once purple rim is green. My nutrients are low (no3's at 0.25 and po4's at 0.03) The alk has been stable around the 8dkh range. Mg is spot on at 1250. Sg at 1.026. Now I might be answering my own question here, but I used to run MH's (and purple was good) and then I went to some cheap Chinese LED's a few months back and that's when a lot more green came out. I recently put some Radion G2's up (last week). Aside from lights, do you have an tips for getting the most purple of out your acro's...?

Vmacisback · Oct 31, 2013

same thing happened to a friend, i had a JF purple barney acro in my mh/t5 tank and it was a deep puple with reddish polyps. I traded it to a friend who runs AI Sols and a month later it looks like a green slimer. Must be a color missing in the LED spectrum. The coral was thriving in both tanks just simply changed colors.

spspirate · Oct 31, 2013

LOL..you might have answered your own question. Do you have pics?

duke62 · Oct 31, 2013

Has nothing to do with with the sols. My miagi tort and my bonsai is as purple as you can get and i run 3 sol blues. This info is what gives leds a bad name

Vmacisback · Nov 1, 2013

duke62 said:
Has nothing to do with with the sols. My miagi tort and my bonsai is as purple as you can get and i run 3 sol blues. This info is what gives leds a bad name

gimme a break thats great you have 2 corals that are purple. You gave the guy asking the question no info whatsoever. I just switched to LEDs am having some success and am pretty happy with the switch. I just dont get how i gave LEDS a bad name by pointing out a similarity? Maybe you should chime in when you decide to read the post entirely and can atleast add some knowledge if you have any on the subject. There are plenty of post on this forum about LEDs changing corals color esp. SPS.

VIPReef · Nov 1, 2013

I run Radium 250's in my display and have a frag tank lit by led's connected to it (same water,temp,pH, etc.) and most corals do change colors some for the best and some for the worst. Growth, however, is not even in the same league compared the display tank.

ORA Purple Plasma display tank (got all the purple and greens)

Recently cut frag in frag tank lit by leds (lost a lot of the purple)

duke62 · Nov 1, 2013

You want good info? Dont listen to people saying LEDs is the reason behind having different colors, they have wrong info. How was that? If I was him I would check Potassium levels. Check your NO3 and PO4,raise the coral up some and see if it changes color. So giving the WRONG info is worse then giving no info at all

Vmacisback · Nov 1, 2013

duke62 said:
You want good info? Dont listen to people saying LEDs is the reason behind having different colors, they have wrong info. How was that? If I was him I would check Potassium levels. Check your NO3 and PO4,raise the coral up some and see if it changes color. So giving the WRONG info is worse then giving no info at all

why didnt you just say all that the first time? but once again it doesnt look like you read his initial post where he has already stated that info. so by saying check you N03 and your P04, well hees already done that. You would have seen that had you just simply read his post. You didnt even look at the guy who posted pictures and clearly stated most corals do change colors some for better some for worse. Im not sure why you want to argue with me and clearly people know that LEDs can have an affect on color of corals. Your the one who gave the wrong info by giving no info at all just your 2 cents...and even that was wrong.

FaviaFreak · Nov 1, 2013

MH's all day baby..best colors and growth hands down

eg8r210 · Nov 1, 2013

duke62 said:
You want good info? Dont listen to people saying LEDs is the reason behind having different colors, they have wrong info. How was that? If I was him I would check Potassium levels. Check your NO3 and PO4,raise the coral up some and see if it changes color. So giving the WRONG info is worse then giving no info at all

I would carry this a bit further and say if you want good info don't rely solely on what people on a forum have to say. I live a few minutes from WWC and employees there have told me they have color changes when they switched to LED lit tanks. This is not just fairy dust and unicorns, LEDs DO impact coral both positively and negatively depending on your perspective. I am in no way saying LEDs are causing the issue in this specific instance, I am just saying they COULD be. There are certainly other factors that could be the culprit or all these different factors working in concert together causing the issue.

ksicard · Nov 1, 2013

I run a DIY led setup that has a full spectrum array and a lot of times when I get new frags from a MH/t5 tank the color will shift colors as you have noticed but over time they shift to their end color. So it could just be that the Chinese LED's didn't have full spectrum so your frags turned brown/green while re building their zoxnthelle (however you spell that word) and maybe with the radions spectrum you should see them color up over time. I have several purple acro's and they have no issue holding their purple color once they got established and use to my tank, the only bad color shift I've had is my miyagi tort is solid purple instead of having green around the base despite placement in my tank. I would suggest running your actinic led's on the more intense side if your radions have them and then give the frags time to color up.

EricTheRed · Nov 1, 2013

Thanks guys for all the info. Sorry to have started an argument

I'm hoping to get the color back with the better spectrum of the Radions. I have a JF Grape juice and a (true lineaged) Garf that kept their purple. My Cali tort is also fabulous and is all purple with the nice green polyps. This only seems to be happening to a few of my purples. I have another valida with about half purple and half green and it would look amazing if it went all purple. I just acquired a Myagi Tort frag and although it is only an inch, it will surely be one of my fav's as long as it keeps the green it is supposed to have. Since some went green and others stayed purple, I was wondering if maybe it wasn't the LED's. I've heard of tank crashes from too much potassium so I think I'll let the Radions run their course. After the investment I don't see going back to MH's as an option, although time will tell since the purples are my favorite acro's and I will go back if they don't ever perk up.

Chameleon · Nov 1, 2013

EricTheRed said:
Thanks guys for all the info. Sorry to have started an argument I'm hoping to get the color back with the better spectrum of the Radions. I have a JF Grape juice and a (true lineaged) Garf that kept their purple. My Cali tort is also fabulous and is all purple with the nice green polyps. This only seems to be happening to a few of my purples. I have another valida with about half purple and half green and it would look amazing if it went all purple. I just acquired a Myagi Tort frag and although it is only an inch, it will surely be one of my fav's as long as it keeps the green it is supposed to have. Since some went green and others stayed purple, I was wondering if maybe it wasn't the LED's. I've heard of tank crashes from too much potassium so I think I'll let the Radions run their course. After the investment I don't see going back to MH's as an option, although time will tell since the purples are my favorite acro's and I will go back if they don't ever perk up.

I think you hit the nail on the head their. While some corals will maintain their purples under different lighting others will not. someone saying that their valida and tort keep their purple under leds doesn't mean anything for a completely different purple acro. another note is while some led setups may be able to keep it purple others may not depending on spectrum. I've gone from an led only setup to a hybrid led T5 to mitigate some of the color differences, but I have seen great colors under the radion fixtures from local reefers so I wish you luck in getting the colors you desire from that setup.

atp0726 · Nov 1, 2013

VIPReef said:
I run Radium 250's in my display and have a frag tank lit by led's connected to it (same water,temp,pH, etc.) and most corals do change colors some for the best and some for the worst. Growth, however, is not even in the same league compared the display tank.

ORA Purple Plasma display tank (got all the purple and greens)

Recently cut frag in frag tank lit by leds (lost a lot of the purple)

What LEDs are you using? I am doing something similar however, I have a Radion on my DT and T5s on my frag tank. Still to early for me to see any difference.

Greenstreet.1 · Nov 1, 2013

Just a question don't kill me lol. Don't the conditions that the coral is coming from and then going to have a bigger affect on the color more than the light will ?

The Lord is good.

atp0726 · Nov 1, 2013

Greenstreet.1 said:
Just a question don't kill me lol. Don't the conditions that the coral is coming from and then going to have a bigger affect on the color more than the light will ?

From the pictures I am not to concerned with the conditions they are coming from. I am sure the parameters are impeccable and could probably tell you exactly what they are. I have LEDs and I have found IME the transition from corals grown under LEDs to be much easier than corals grown under other lighting sources. This is purely speculation on my part and if anything its a theory I am still validating (in may head at least). It doesn't mean I don't by frags from tanks using T5s or Metal Halides I just like to know ahead of time the lighting they were grown under.

bct15 · Nov 1, 2013

Not all LEDs are equal, and almost every person running LEDs has their intensities a little different. However, it has been demonstrated time and time again that LEDs do change he colors of corals, specifically acropora and chalices that were grown under mh's. It comes down to a difference in the available wavelengths of light (spectrum). Certain wavelengths will excite certain pigments in corals, and certain wavelengths will irreversibly change the proteins color with the absence of other wavelengths. In particular, LEDs have been known to lose reds (fluorescing and non fluorescing) and purples and bring out more greens and blues. I stumbled on an older article that actually does very well at explaining how this happens, though that isn't the sole purpose of the article. I attempted to paste the link below. Basically, if you he what I did out of it, the proteins that cause us to see the colors in the coral are dependent on the light that hits them and two species that are purple may not have the same protien to look purple. If the light spectrum isn't present that one of the proteins needs but present for a green proteins, the coral will appear green. It may also permanently turn green. If you look at the light spectrum needed for most green fluorescing proteins it is right in the sweet spot for most led fixtures.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/12/corals

Greenstreet.1 · Nov 1, 2013

atp0726 said:
Greenstreet.1 said:

Just a question don't kill me lol. Don't the conditions that the coral is coming from and then going to have a bigger affect on the color more than the light will ?

From the pictures I am not to concerned with the conditions they are coming from. I am sure the parameters are impeccable and could probably tell you exactly what they are. I have LEDs and I have found IME the transition from corals grown under LEDs to be much easier than corals grown under other lighting sources. This is purely speculation on my part and if anything its a theory I am still validating (in may head at least). It doesn't mean I don't by frags from tanks using T5s or Metal Halides I just like to know ahead of time the lighting they were grown under.

Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying. I also use LEDs I run two Ai sol blues mix with ATI 4x54 I also don't have any issues with color. But my question is not about lights only. Let's say the person selling the frag keeps his/her tank at
7
400
1350
Now you buy the frag bring it home and you levels are way different the question is will that also cause an issue with color until it get use to the new levels. ?

The Lord is good.

aslmx · Nov 1, 2013

I never could get a purple plasma to color up ,even under radiums. Im not sure all leds are equal. Do a search for Reefnjunkie, I just ordered the leds he has,Ocean Revive arctic so26s, His stuff looks awesome!! No color problems that I can see. I love mh but I hate buying bulbs every 8-12 months. I hope my leds work out.