corals changing color

[thatguy559]

after switching to plasma.

okay so my corals are going through a color change after the blast of UV my wham min watermelon zoas are turning blue/purple center with the green skirts. my acro that was blue green is now turning pink. some other palys are changing and some corals are just browning out. i think the brown out is due to the whole switching the lights to plasma.


few questions
will they brown outs color back up?
after the corals changed colors will they change back?
anyone experience this when changing their bulbs from 20k to 10k? or changing out old bulbs.

 

[NWDiver]

Heh, I'm right there with you on the color change. I just changed my pair of hqi250s from 10K to 15K.
Lots of coral changing color. I asked "otherTodd" about it, and he said that his do the same thing when he changes lighting.
I have my fingers crossed
Oh, he says that his are back to normal in a few weeks...

 

[thatguy559]

okay so then its just a color shift phase when changing the spectrum

 

[ReefLogic]

after switching to plasma.

okay so my corals are going through a color change after the blast of UV my wham min watermelon zoas are turning blue/purple center with the green skirts. my acro that was blue green is now turning pink. some other palys are changing and some corals are just browning out. i think the brown out is due to the whole switching the lights to plasma.


few questions
will they brown outs color back up?
after the corals changed colors will they change back?
anyone experience this when changing their bulbs from 20k to 10k? or changing out old bulbs.

Yes they should color back up providing your water is on par and you aren't frying them with light. How old were you previous bulbs?
Yes, I too experienced the change when going from 10 to 20k, then again when I went from 20k to my current 14k's. PS....I love the 14k Pheonix so much more than I did the 20k's....too smurfy in my opinion.

 

[thatguy559]

They were 3 months old when I switched to the plasma light fixture. I don't run my lights at 100% maybe about 70%

 

[ReefLogic]

I don't suppose you have action at a par meter huh? You could be toasting them....it's just a thought. I would be interested in seeing differences between your old MH (I am assuming) and your plasma. Might want to entertain dimming it a bit more. And I would really try and rent or borrow PAR meter and see what you are hitting at, at different depths.

 

[thatguy559]

I don't think I'm toasting them because the other corals directly under it at the top of the tank are not effected. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow it's more of the outlying corals that are changing colors minus the whammin watermelon zoas

 

[ReefLogic]

That would make sense. But are the one's directly under the light the same kind of coral?

 

[mojoreef]

Their are two things that apply to a corals color. One is the algae (zoox) which have two dominate pigments with in them, one is chlorophyllâ (green) and the other one is carotenoid peridinin which is yellow. When you get a build up of the zoox with in the coral you get alot of these two pigments, thus mix alot of green and yellow together what color do you get????....brown.
Causes: Nutrient build up is of coarse the easest answer (as in feed the algae and you get more) another answer however is that the algae were not getting enough light and needed to expand its population in order to make up for the difference.

The other thing that applies is the pigments with in the coral. If you run corals under a pariticular light certain things happen as time goes by. One is again the zoox, certain strains become dominate as they use the light being offered in a better manner then others with in the coral tissue. Now you have changed that equation sooo we got a little revolution going on in their for dominance. Also the corals themselves create an enviroment for the algae, they do this by setting up pigments to help farm the algae. SOme pigments they set up are clear and are used for UV protection, some are set up to take what ever light is coming into the tissue and then turn it into another color and fluorescing a usable color (usable to the algae) back at the color.

So bottom line is it is all about the waves of photons you are throwing at the coral, you have made a big change in that by changing to a different spectrum, now the coral and the algae need to adapt to this and they do so by the above methods. So give them some time and they will, will it be back to the same?? I dought but shouldnt be to far from it.

I did a little write up on how lighting works with corals you might find it an interesting read: http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f69/some-light-info-ya-59098/

 

[Top Water]

I have the same corals from same colony in different tanks w/ different lights . The colors can be extremly different.

 

[thatguy559]

forgot about this thread!!! my whammin watermelons turned a blue/purple center with a green skirt. just noticed today they are going back to the original colors. most of the the corals are getting the original colors back. the only thing is that my red monti cap is starting to look metalic??