The key to great colors

Mole · May 7, 2015

revhtree said:
Beautiful!

I absolutely agree. Outstanding information and thank you for sharing.

JBNY · May 7, 2015

beastium said:
I have heard Potassium enhances color. Any merit to that?

I have had very high levels > 500 and lower than 300, I would not say that I noticed anything out of the ordinary. Now maybe if I was dosing potassium for the specific reason of coloring up one particular coral I might have noticed that it was slightly different. But as a general panacea for great coloration I have not noticed it do much.

JBNY · May 7, 2015

Pete polyp said:
I guess I need to try that kz zeospur2 then because the zooax on my acro is extremely thick

Dark pigmentation on acros is mostly a matter of one of two things, low light or high nitrates. Lowering nitrates is a matter of exporting those nutrients via the skimmer, or carbon dosing, or any of the other methods out there.

Pete polyp · May 7, 2015

I dose nitrate and have a 6 bulb t5 on a 40.

JBNY · May 7, 2015

Why are you dosing nitrates if your acros are darker than you want?

Pete polyp · May 7, 2015

I dosed to 1ppm because they were dying

TUSI · May 7, 2015

Stability is definetly the key for grouth and health of corals. Light is another factor. I find that dosing certain additives will enhance colors dramatically. Pottasium is not the same thing as pottasium iodide, bromine and fluorine. I dose all zeo vit additives and it helps with color for sure.

Pete polyp · May 7, 2015

I was under the impression zeovit additives were supposed to be used along with zeolite in a reactor. The way I understood it was the zeolite stripped those elements out along with the nutrients so it had to be replenished.

gpwdr · May 7, 2015

TUSI · May 7, 2015

I use all their products except the zeolite reactor.

Pete polyp · May 7, 2015

So you are using zeolite in another reactor?

JBNY · May 7, 2015

TUSI said:
Stability is definetly the key for grouth and health of corals. Light is another factor. I find that dosing certain additives will enhance colors dramatically. Pottasium is not the same thing as pottasium iodide, bromine and fluorine. I dose all zeo vit additives and it helps with color for sure.

How does the additives change the color? Do they make them lighter or a different color altogether?

scoobysnack77 · May 8, 2015

Pete polyp said:
I dose nitrate and have a 6 bulb t5 on a 40.

how do you dose nitrate safely?

JBNY · May 8, 2015

Dosing Nitrates is pretty easy. I have been doing it for the last three months. My last tank (the second set of pictures) I had undetectable nitrates using carbon dosing, this time I want to have a little bit of nitrates ~5ppm in the tank. I think the corals will probably be a bit healthier in the long run.

To dose nitrates just figure out how much you want to raise them by using one of the online calculators like planted tanks use.

http://www.theaquatools.com/fertilization-calculator

For my tank I dosed to raise the Nitrates by 1ppm until I got to 5ppm. You can buy KNO3 or another kind of powdered nitrate online and mix it up based on the formula they provide. So for my tank I mixed up 40g of KNO3 in 500ml, when I dose 30ml daily, that was supposed to raised the NO3 in tank by about 1ppm. So my tank consumed more N than I though and it took about a month to get there. Now I dose about 20ml and it keeps my N just about 5ppm. And yes test N a lot when you are first dosing.

mrjlopez731 · May 8, 2015

I'm going to follow these advice and see how things go. Thanks for sharing this info.

TUSI · May 8, 2015

I dont use the zeo spur cause I dont like the pastel colors. But I do use the B balance for the reds. Potassium iodide is used as well. Iron is used for the green colors but you have to be carefull cause to much can cause an algae bloom. I find keeping potassium at 380 it helps coral maintain blue and purple colors. As we all know tanks behave different from each other so if you try this go slowly and check for improvement before you put full doses.