Good growth no color

[Jamie S]

I have a few corals that have decent growth but no color. Here’s an example of 1 month color. The original pice still has the same color as when I got it. Any ideas why the new growth won’t color up?

 

[john90009]

There are some corals that are really hard to color up. For my it’s vivids rainbow delight. It grows onto a brown turd, with slight purple in the tips but it should be a heck of a bunch of other colors. While I have no issue with colors on my other corals. Some corals look better when they turn into baseball sized colonies and they are composed majority wise of growing tips. I saw this personally with my tricolor. A few sticks it was brown with purple but when you let it grow into a bush of 50 growing tips, it was all purple. How do your other corals look?

 

[iTzJu]

There are some corals that are really hard to color up. For my it’s vivids rainbow delight. It grows onto a brown turd, with slight purple in the tips but it should be a heck of a bunch of other colors. While I have no issue with colors on my other corals. Some corals look better when they turn into baseball sized colonies and they are composed majority wise of growing tips. I saw this personally with my tricolor. A few sticks it was grown with purple but when you let it grow into a bush of 50 growing tips, it was all purple. How do your other corals look?

I agree, I have a few that are just straight up brown but then everything else have great color. once new growth and tips start coming in, its when color start peaking out. 1 month to me is not long enough to color up SPS. for me I usually expect the SPS to settle after 3 months or so but again all corals are different and will react different. some will settle quickly and color up within the week, but in my experience is takes a while.

 

[Jamie S]

There are some corals that are really hard to color up. For my it’s vivids rainbow delight. It grows onto a brown turd, with slight purple in the tips but it should be a heck of a bunch of other colors. While I have no issue with colors on my other corals. Some corals look better when they turn into baseball sized colonies and they are composed majority wise of growing tips. I saw this personally with my tricolor. A few sticks it was brown with purple but when you let it grow into a bush of 50 growing tips, it was all purple. How do your other corals look?

For the most part they all have good color still with a little growth. The red monti cap is the only one growing and has good color on the growth. I know it’s still a new tank (6months old) so I’m happy that I’ve only lost one coral so far.

 

[john90009]

Did you happen to see the colony pictures of which you received your frags from or personally know the owner of the original colony? Sometimes that may just be the corals natural colors.

 

[Jamie S]

I agree, I have a few that are just straight up brown but then everything else have great color. once new growth and tips start coming in, its when color start peaking out. 1 month to me is not long enough to color up SPS. for me I usually expect the SPS to settle after 3 months or so but again all corals are different and will react different. some will settle quickly and color up within the week, but in my experience is takes a while.

I was hoping it was normal. My goal in the first year really is to just be able to sustain and grow the corals. After that I’ll work on trying to get them to color up good

 

[Jamie S]

Did you happen to see the colony pictures of which you received your frags from or personally know the owner of the original colony? Sometimes that may just be the corals natural colors.

Yes it was a local member and I went to his house and checked out his tank. The original piece looks exactly the same but it’s just the new growth that is pale.

 

[john90009]

Happen to have a picture of your tank? In my experience of the orange monti cap is more of a hot pink color then you may be having an imbalance of nutrients that are feeding the coral with you type of light. When my tank was lacking nutrients my orange monti cap was more of a light shade of pink/orange. Once my tank aged and I started feeding more consistently without swinging phopahates the colors came in strong hot orange.

 

[Jamie S]

Happen to have a picture of your tank? In my experience of the orange monti cap is more of a hot pink color then you may be having an imbalance of nutrients that are feeding the coral with you type of light. When my tank was lacking nutrients my orange monti cap was more of a light shade of pink/orange. Once my tank aged and I started feeding more consistently without swinging phopahates the colors came in strong hot orange.

Here’s a few shots with the lights on 100%. The purple fusion new growth actually looks better with all channels on.

 

[john90009]

Yeah the tank deff will come into it’s own just got to give it time. With bare bottom tanks it may take awhile for stability in the long run to be achieved. And as long as those super purple ones are growing, you can cut back the old brown pale parts. Just do it one by one. So cut one down to the base and let it completely re encrust over the cut portion. Once it’s covered it may start shooting out a super purple tip.

 

[john90009]

Keep an eye out on that filefish as well with sps overtime.

 

[Jamie S]

Thanks! Appreciate the advise. I was pretty nervous about starting a bare bottom tank with dry rock but so far (knock on wood) it hasn’t been as bad as I thought. I had the filefish in the biocube and noticed 1 aptasia coming from one of the zoas so I moved him over. The aptasia is now gone.

 

[Deleted member 27248]

I have a few corals that have decent growth but no color. Here’s an example of 1 month color. The original pice still has the same color as when I got it. Any ideas why the new growth won’t color up?

Curious what your nitrate and phosphate levels are.

 

[Jamie S]

Curious what your nitrate and phosphate levels are.

I’ve been trying to raise my nitrates they’ve been 0 for a while and phosphates I got down to .03 as of last night. I’m slowly trying to feed a little more to get them up.

 

[Deleted member 27248]

Dose this

 

[Jamie S]

Dose this

How well does it work? I’m a little nervous about raising too much.

 

[Deleted member 27248]

Works great...I dose nitrate and phosphate into my system every 3-4 weeks until it gets too low. I personally like nitrate 20ppm-30ppm and phosphate .1 .25. Everything growing fast and plump.

 

[Hockeynut]

I dose this when needed to raise a bit when needed it’s really pretty safe.

 

[Deleted member 27248]

I dose this as well