coloration of acros and montiporas

Charles · 02-24-2007, 04:05 AM

I am wondering how do we keep the colors of acros or montipora from turning brown? I understand this change of color means that the original symbiotic algae were expelled? And a new set of symbiotic algae takes over and overwhelmed the original color of the corals. How do we reverse this and at the same time prevent this from happening? Please advice. thanks.

Mike O'Brien · 02-25-2007, 07:51 PM

It's just an increase in the ammount of zoox, not a different variety. They are all golden brown in color. What you need to do is keep the nutrients lower, the colors are generally from pigments in the coral, not zoox. The zoox. just block out the pigments. Keep the nutrients low so the zoox are not fertilized, and keep them in good light and you'll have colorful corals.

cf77 · 02-25-2007, 08:40 PM

I agree with mike, keep the nutrients down. What lighting are you running?

Charles · 02-26-2007, 05:22 AM

I am using 2 x 250watt 20000k MH with 4 x 30 watt actinic blue. So I will just make sure nutrient is low which means lessen feeding to fish but how about feeding to other corals? This will also cause nutrient to be high right?