sps washed out What additives or food to add?

[maestro]

Just wondering what everyone adds in terms of additives or food aimed at sps corals, acro's and monti's especially.

I dont add anything to the tank at the moment apart from the fish's flake, and I do a 20% water change every month

Ive noticed over the last few months the colours of my acro's and monti's seem a little washed out, actually the soft corals aswell seem a little like this too, I only really notice it when I add a new coral, for example recently I put in a few ricordeas and a brick red monti and it was obviously that they had alot more vibrance to them.

After a few weeks they had already started to fade a bit, the brick red monti is now pale creamy red/brown colour.

The tank parametres are as follows
180 litre tank, 4 t5 bulbs which were replaced 4 weeks ago
deltec mce600 skimmer
KH 9.6
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1400
Phosphate 0 on deltec test kit
Nitrate 0

Personally I think its either due to a lack of certain nutrients or down to the T5's.

[ickypimp]

i dose lugols weekly and use coral vibrance a couple of times a week (turn yer skimmer odd for a while though...)

[bony]

i use iodine one a week and i add one scoop of tmc bio mg per day. i have a calcium reactor which should be adding most minerals needed for the corals. i also add frozen plancton now and again.

[bermuda]

I had the same problem. I think it's down to trace elements.
I had huge difference in color since I started using Coral A/B/C
both my red montis from red/brown got back to bright red.
I don't do water changes, and I tried other trace element solutions before, but had the best results with grotech.

[maestro]

I think what ill do Is give the grotech ones a go for a period of say 3 months and see if the colours improve, I was given free samples of some grotech products but just looked and they are N, M and P.

[scottzoo]

any results

[jemram]

Just to throw a curveball in........are your T5's due to be replaced?

[maestro]

any results

I use zeovit now so didnt carry out the experiment, as above I suspect lack of trace elements

[Jon B]

I use zeovit now so didnt carry out the experiment, as above I suspect lack of trace elements

Have the colours come back since starting with the Zeo?

[fire999]

You need more wattage... up the T5s or add a MH .. its nothing to do with trace elements or the rest ( trust me) as long as you are not overstocked, and its a mature tank . Its down to your lighting

[maestro]

You need more wattage... up the T5s or add a MH .. its nothing to do with trace elements or the rest ( trust me) as long as you are not overstocked, and its a mature tank . Its down to your lighting

This is an old thread, since I posted ive upgraded to dual 150 halides and 4 actinics, the colour of the corals has improved

[fire999]

This is an old thread, since I posted ive upgraded to dual 150 halides and 4 actinics, the colour of the corals has improved



AHH so i was right ?????? I am glad things got better

[maestro]

Yeah you were right, I think that low nutrients and high light is what you need, and im working on them both, think I may even upgrade to dual 250's in the future.

When I upgraded a brown acro frag I had coloured up staright away, first to green and now its developing blue tips