Speaking Of Lost Color

[djurgens]

My husband and I have a 155 gal. All of our SPS are beautifully colored and growing like little weeds, so much so that we decided to do some fragging and sent the frags to our local fish store for sale. However almost all but the newest additions lost color and have "browned out". No more pinks, blues, teals, augghhhhh.
Beside the lighting could anything else have caused this? They went from 400watt 20k to 400watt 10k.......We recently switched to bulbs in the shop to 400watt 20ks hoping that would help. I haven't seen much of a change yet and am wondering if it has something to do with water quality?

Regards, Rebecca

 

[Krish]

Not sure Rebecca...Sorry I just saw that you were a new member here and wated to welcome you to the forum. I'm glad you have decided to join and I wish you the best in getting your corals' color back

 

[djurgens]

Thanks Krish75 ..I see your in the Bahamas...Oh, you lucky dog.

Regards, Rebecca

 

[Krish]

Thanks Krish75 ..I see your in the Bahamas...Oh, you lucky dog

LOL...It has a few benefits

 

[CarlaW]

It is entirely possible that they will color up again, but it may take a while. Look what happened here, you stressed the coral by taking frags, then you moved them to some different water quality, and changed the lighting scheme, twice!! I would let things proceed as they may. They will probably color up, it may just take a couple of months for everything to settle in.
HTH

 

[kevinpo]

Hello Rebecca and welcome to Reef Frontiers

It is quite common for SPS corals to turn brown from changes in lighting intensity or spectrum. It can last as long as 6 months for some corals while others will color up in about 14 days. When SPS turn brown it is not an indication that they are in poor health or are about to die. It just means that the coral has allowed the Zooxanthellae (which is coffee brown) to increase to such a high level that the coral appears brown.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[djurgens]

Thanks Everyone!!

I was starting to worry here. With the lighting change in the shop they are slowly starting to get some of their colors back but I'm sure we'll be holding onto them until they do color up. For some reason no one wants to buy a frag that doesn't scream color at you..... hummmm? Go figure )

Thanks Again
Regards, Rebecca

 

[wrightme43]

I seem to have my best luck with corals that are brown in the store. My two favorites were brown and almost dead in the store. One is yellow, green, pink and purple now, and the other is a really pretty green.

 

[djurgens]

A few of our colonies are rescues too. We picked up a German Blue and Purple Montipora digitata that had browned out and now have beautiful color not to mention they are taking over the top left side of the tank. We have a Hydnaphora (?) that only had 3 half branches and was quickly dying out. Brought it home, now it has 10 full branches and looks like a shaggy dog. That guy is growing like a weed.
Anymore we don't hesitate to pick up brown ones. You never know what is going to happen and most times it is neat to watch then color up...

 

[wrightme43]

Yep and I think once I get them to color up, I am the coolest dude on my street. LOL It feeds my ego. LOL