SPS questions!

nietzsche

Active Member
btw, if your corals colors begin to start turning pale and lighten, then either youre not feeding your fish enough or might need to add more to the bioload, and also means youre running a nutrient-low envrionment. could also be that they werent acclimated to the lighting. if they STN or RTN itll be hard to trace what happened to them. usually its when someone adds or changes something to the tank-- could also happen for no reason, only solution is to frag the healthy parts and throw away the parts affected.
if your corals begin to darken in color then you probably have issues with excess nutrients and should try to see if running more GFO or adding a GFO reactor to the tank could help, also running a large skimmer can help, but can also deplete some trace elements like potassium
well, hope that helps out. i forgot to ask you, what size of tank is this in? if its a small tank or a tank with a few frags, you can look into either making your own calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium or buying calcium and alkalinity like B-Ionic.
once you have everything the way it should be, if you have a sump, you can use kalkwasser to maintain alkalinity, pH, and calcium, but it will raise pH.
good luck
 

matt2364

Member
I have a 55 gallon tank. I use B-Ionic right now to keep my alk and calcium levels stable. Currently they are at 9.6Dkh and 440 calcium. I just finally got a PH tester and tested my water and I got 7.9, why is this so low. I just did a 20% water change and there is plenty of surface agitation.
 

nietzsche

Active Member
what time did you check? lights off or on? morning? what test kit did you use? could be a number things affecting pH, but for right now its not bad. cant really help you out too much on pH, but seems like you have your parameters in order
how about your other parameters:
-nitrates
-phosphates
-magnesium ?
just noticed, did you check pH after changing out the water or before?
 

matt2364

Member
I just checked the PH it is 9:00 P.M. here, the lights are all still on the tank. I have been using a test kit and getting around 8.0, I did, however, just buy a PH meter and calibrated it and it reads 7.9. I checked PH after changing water.
Nitrates, ammonia, and nitrites are all at 0
I do not have test kits to test for magnesium and phosphates. Do these levels effect PH?
 

nietzsche

Active Member
the pH probably dropped because you changed the water
i was just wondering about your other levels to see how things were
 

matt2364

Member
I just read a thread that said that acropora and most SPS will be more colorful with lower kelvin bulbs. Has anyone else heard this? I always thought that the more blue (higher Kelvin) the bulb is the more colorful your corals.
The article said that when your tank has higher Kelvin lighting the SPS will turn brown to try to soak up all the Uv rays. The SPS will assume that it is lower in the water, because the higher the kelvin the lower you will be in the water. Higher Kelvin rays penetrate to a lower depth than lower kelvin rays. When your SPS has a lower Kelvin bulb it will turn the SPS more colorful to try to block out the extra UV rays. This seems to make sense, I just have never heard anyone say this before.
What does everyone think about this?
 

matt b

Active Member
WOW! They look better in your tank then mine. What K are you running? I am running 12k and they did not look that colorful. And the corals you can take off the plugs, I would get a razor blade and get under the glue and get it off that way. You could prob get the glued ones off but good luck with the epoxyed one. And if they break its not that big of a deal just glue what ever broke onto a rock and you have a frag. IMO SPS are very hard to kill when fragging or moving.
 

matt2364

Member
What K are you running?
2x175w 14,000K w/2x40w actinics. They are actually a lot more colorful in real life than in the pictures. If you saw the frags in my tank you would see that pictures are actually pretty dark and do not show the color.
I am planning on taking them off the plugs pretty soon, need to get some good glue first. I bought some of that Boston Reef Glue that they have at phishy business but it does not work very well at all. Especially if you try to glue underwater like the tube says you can. I did try to get the epoxy one off, but I did not have too much luck with it, lol.
Thanks for the frags btw, they are all very nice and colorful. I especially like the larger green one. Do you happen to have the names for all the species?
 

matt b

Active Member
Originally Posted by matt2364
http:///forum/post/2622439
2x175w 14,000K w/2x40w actinics. They are actually a lot more colorful in real life than in the pictures. If you saw the frags in my tank you would see that pictures are actually pretty dark and do not show the color.
I am planning on taking them off the plugs pretty soon, need to get some good glue first. I bought some of that Boston Reef Glue that they have at phishy business but it does not work very well at all. Especially if you try to glue underwater like the tube says you can. I did try to get the epoxy one off, but I did not have too much luck with it, lol.
Thanks for the frags btw, they are all very nice and colorful. I especially like the larger green one. Do you happen to have the names for all the species?
No names for any of them. I dont have any names for any of my corals but I need to get the m cause some I bet are worth alot more.
 

matt2364

Member
I just got a monti-cap from Matt B, it was a beautiful bright green color when I got it. I glued the cap to a rock that is about halfway up in my tank. Within 2 days the monti-cap turned brown. Will the monti-cap recover from the shock of being glued and moved tanks and turn green again or do I need to move further away from the lights. I have a 55 gallon tank with 2x175w 14,000K halides and 2x40w actinics. If I need to move it, how long does it usually take for the monti to regain color and will it take longer to regain color the longer I leave it in this higher tank position?
Thanks, I know this a lot of questions, but I am curious :p
 

matt b

Active Member
Originally Posted by matt2364
http:///forum/post/2623802
I just got a monti-cap from Matt B, it was a beautiful bright green color when I got it. I glued the cap to a rock that is about halfway up in my tank. Within 2 days the monti-cap turned brown. Will the monti-cap recover from the shock of being glued and moved tanks and turn green again or do I need to move further away from the lights. I have a 55 gallon tank with 2x175w 14,000K halides and 2x40w actinics. If I need to move it, how long does it usually take for the monti to regain color and will it take longer to regain color the longer I leave it in this higher tank position?
Thanks, I know this a lot of questions, but I am curious :p
I had it under 175 in a 29 so it should not be to much of light shock. There has got to be something wrong with something. Did you get your lights used?
 

nietzsche

Active Member
Originally Posted by matt2364
http:///forum/post/2623802
I just got a monti-cap from Matt B, it was a beautiful bright green color when I got it. I glued the cap to a rock that is about halfway up in my tank. Within 2 days the monti-cap turned brown. Will the monti-cap recover from the shock of being glued and moved tanks and turn green again or do I need to move further away from the lights. I have a 55 gallon tank with 2x175w 14,000K halides and 2x40w actinics. If I need to move it, how long does it usually take for the monti to regain color and will it take longer to regain color the longer I leave it in this higher tank position?
Thanks, I know this a lot of questions, but I am curious :p
the reason it turned brown was because it just reacted to being in a new setup. ive gotten corals shipped that browned out within a week, but will recover with a month or two as long as parameters are up to par. -- i had a couple that never got used to my tank.. one was a blue stag that browned out, RTN'ed, then had to frag. now its encrusting slowly but its like a greenish/brownish color. another one i had was a green digi that browned out and couldnt bring back, even though it was growing
 

matt2364

Member
Alright, I hope that it turns back, bc it was a beautiful green color when I got it. I will keep everyone posted.
 
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