Coral Colors...

[fishface]

I was curious what my be causing by Blue Mushroom coral to appear light purple? I'm guessing it's the lights, but curious if some water parameters need to be tweaked. I love the deep blue color that these corals can exhibit, and was hoping to "influence" them towards a deeper shade. Otherwise, they appear to be healthy and are reproducing rapidly.

Lighting:
- PowerCompact lights (260Watts) which are on about 9 hrs/day. This consists of 2 65W 8800K bulbs and 2 65W ultra-actinic bulbs.

Thanks!

[horge]

Three things come to mind, when it comes to corals or corallimorpharians (like your blue shrooms) appearing to shift color.

Lighting spectrum, like you indicated, is one of them. You can take an ordinary incandescent bulb/lamp, and temporarily shine it on the animal to check its color under a yellower kind of daylight (actually, even a good flashlight will help). If the color under that kind of lighting is more like what you remember back at the dealer --then either you adjust your lighting to suit your aesthetic preference, or not

Lighting intensity (in the usable spectrum) is a longer shot. Some shrooms, like Discosoma coeruleus (syn. Actinodiscus coeruleus) DO sometimes shift appearance slightly towards purple, possibly caused by an increase in BROWN zooxanthellae that they host. Insufficient light can prompt the shroom to boost its army of zoox, to squeeze more out of the limited light

Alkalinity is a really fringe possibility. Some corals change color with a change in Alk, and it is possible that shrooms do the same.


Hope this confuses...errr, I mean, helps


horge

[Doug1]

I gotta agree with Horge, I think the main influence is the color spectrum of the lights themselves, influenced by the clarity of the water, and the amount of and species of zooxanthella present in the organism. Even corallimorphs and octocorals will respond to different types of light, tho most people see the most difference in scleratinians or small polyp stony corals. The type and color temp of the bulp can make abig difference in the way our eyes see color, and its not unussual for them to change as they adapt to different lighting.
I always strongly recommend checking SSG on LFS tanks when contemplating a purchase, but I gotta say the light they are under in the LFS will affect how they look. If they are under VHO and you have Metal halide or vice versa, they will change, and not always for the better

[FishDaddy]

Fishface,
As Horge and Doug said, it's most probably the lights. My Blues were under MH at the LFS and gradually shifted to purplish under my VHO's. They are nice and blue under just the Actinics, though!
Dick

[hamburglar]

My PC's make corals look funky also.