SPS polyp color shifts?

[FoD]

Anyone ever seen total polyp color shift?

Let me begin with a little backstory. About 2 years ago, I added a few SPS to my current system, as test pieces, to acknowledge the system maturity. One of these pieces was a Pink Lemonade. It had all the familiar symptoms of a PL, yellow body, pink polyps, blue/green growth rim at encrustation.

Three months in, growth, and color stable. My system was without my CalRx at this time, as my demand was zero. I used a doser with Kalk to keep Alk stable. I had problems with a GHL order , ordered a Stand Alone 4 head. A slave arrived. Returned. Replacement with a slave again. Annoyed...Bought a cheapy from my LFS (mainstream brand, but cheap). It failed within 2 months. Alk dropped to 5 in the course of a week or so. I was lazy, and wasn’t testing. I see all of you anal reefers judging me. Anyway, it happened.

Lost a couple of fresh fragged acros. It happens. But the crazy thing now, my PL thrived. Still growing, encrusting, branching...but now with clear polyps. No pink to be found. I thought, sweet! Now I can just rename it; FoD Just Lemonade! I could charge millions! But seriously, thought it to be odd.

Fast forward 20+ months. CalRx has been up and running a while. I have full on colonies of acros. Still dose Kalk. Everything has been dead nuts (industry term) stable for 6 months. Guess what’s back? The pink polyps are returning. They are faint, but clearly getting more colored over the last few weeks.

So...anyone ever experienced polyp color shifts? Seen it a million times on skin, but never the polyps. Tell your story.

 

[29bonsaireef]

I've seen polyp colors change many times. Many times, IME due to nutrient or lighting change. Overall health of the coral as well as the rate it is growing.. Really a bunch of things that could cause polyps to lose/change their pigmentation.

 

[FoD]

Oh I don’t doubt it’s happened. I’ve never witnessed it. And this is the only coral to show this in my tank. Pretty interesting honestly.

 

[bubbaque]

I’ve noticed polyps change colors. Usually if you get a brown coral the polyps are also brown. Overtime the whole thing will change colors.

 

[Camaro Show Corals]

Lets see a pic of it. Ive had a few polyps change color most notable on my bc lemon hammer which are yellow green not pinkish.

 

[jda]

Higher building blocks and too-blue spectrum can make corals shift colors over time. PL is a great coral for 10-14k spectrum, so if you got it from a tank with this lighting and now have it in a windex tank, then the colors will change over time - this is just an example, not saying that this happened for sure, or anything.

Sometimes, it can do with traces too. CaRx will add more than just carbonate and calcium... it adds mag, strontium and a bunch of others... so maybe this was it.

 

[FoD]

Higher building blocks and too-blue spectrum can make corals shift colors over time. PL is a great coral for 10-14k spectrum, so if you got it from a tank with this lighting and now have it in a windex tank, then the colors will change over time - this is just an example, not saying that this happened for sure, or anything.

Sometimes, it can do with traces too. CaRx will add more than just carbonate and calcium... it adds mag, strontium and a bunch of others... so maybe this was it.

It changed instantly after the Alk change. I run 400w Radiums, T5HO (Giesemann and ATI whites) and ReefBrite custom UV/Royal LEDs. The lighting didn’t change it. I’ve been at the SPS game for over a decade. This is the only true change in just polyps I’ve ever experienced.