Acans losing color

FishyReef

FishyReef

Broke Reefer!
I got several corals about 6 weeks ago, almost all of which are doing extremely well and growing. But one of the acans I got has lost/changed color. It was a pretty red and purple when I got it, but is now kind of a sickly yellow/green color. Under my white lights it looks a dull red/brown with some yellow, but under the blue lights it looks greenish/yellow when it used to be a pretty purple/red. It still puffs up very nicely and doesn't appear to have lost any size (if anything it may have sprouted some new heads). I've noticed the color loss over the last several weeks (starting within a week of putting it in my tank). I'm guessing it has something to do with lights/placement and am hoping you guys can point me in the right direction. I run AI Sol lights and have this frag placed close to the bottom of the tank (lower than the other green/purple acan which has not lost color). I didn't have much blue light mixed in during the most intense periods of the day, but adjusted that last night and now have blues running all day long (around 25% for both the royal and regular blue), along with white light during the day (intensities vary to mimic the sun). Any other ideas?

Thanks!
 
I personally would leave it alone, because LEDs are known for bring out odd, unexpected colors in some corals and acans do better in lighting that is a little bit dim.
 
Did you acclimate the Acans to your light? LED's sometimes have a way of morphing colors on some coral. AI in particular are missing the lower blue spectrum that corals need to retain their vibrant colors.

Are you running any other lighting with your AI's?
 
+1 Fast

The majority of store bought LED fixtures appear to be missing something near the UV end of the spectrum. Some people have noticed some very different color renderings of corals under LED lighting
 
I did acclimate them to the lights, and intentionally placed them in a lower shadier spot just because I didn't want them to melt under the AIs. I wondered if it was because I didn't have much blue (particularly the super blues) spectrum light in the mix during at least half the day, so did make that change last night - I suppose I should wait to see if that makes any difference.

Fast, I'm not running any other lights with the AIs, though have thought about adding some magenta and/or UV 1w stunner strips (like these: Aquarium Lighting & LED Lights: ecoxotic Stunner LED Strip). The AIs I have are the super blue modules which I believe have a slightly better blue balance than the early modules. Do you have any recommendations on what I could add w/o spending an arm and a leg to bring more colors into the spectrum? Would stunner strips do it, or are they too low in wattage to make a difference? My budget is very tight right now so I can't really afford to do too much.

Also, do you think that the frag lost color under the lights at the store and is showing its true color in my tank, or the other way around? I think it was under MH lighting at the store
 
FishyReef said:
I did acclimate them to the lights, and intentionally placed them in a lower shadier spot just because I didn't want them to melt under the AIs. I wondered if it was because I didn't have much blue (particularly the super blues) spectrum light in the mix during at least half the day, so did make that change last night - I suppose I should wait to see if that makes any difference.

Fast, I'm not running any other lights with the AIs, though have thought about adding some magenta and/or UV 1w stunner strips (like these: Aquarium Lighting & LED Lights: ecoxotic Stunner LED Strip). The AIs I have are the super blue modules which I believe have a slightly better blue balance than the early modules. Do you have any recommendations on what I could add w/o spending an arm and a leg to bring more colors into the spectrum? Would stunner strips do it, or are they too low in wattage to make a difference? My budget is very tight right now so I can't really afford to do too much.

Also, do you think that the frag lost color under the lights at the store and is showing its true color in my tank, or the other way around? I think it was under MH lighting at the store
Click to expand...

Well, from my research into LED lighting (which I am making the jump to this week actually) it seems that reefers running AI Sol's are having better coral color while running T5's with them. You could pick up a ballast end caps, and stand offs to run a pair for somewhere around 50.00. Then add an ATI Purple Plus bulb, and Blue Plus.

Depending on the LFS you bought them from, yes, they could be reverting back to their own natural color. There are a lot of shops that blast their corals with 20K Radium light in an effort to get them to color up more vibrant, thus looking like something we have never seen before. It is always in your best interest to find out what type of lighting the coral is under at your LFS so you know what they are getting before you get them home.

Read this thread about the AI's and T5 supplements. This is basically what made me change my mind away from running these specific lights.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2118814&highlight=ai+sols
 
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I would also like the add that the AI sols are also totally missing the red spectrum, which i think does contribute to color loss because red is a very important wavelength for algae which are what give the corals their color
 
Thank you Fast for the link to that RC thread - and Hannah, that's a very interesting observation about how the lack of red spectrum light could impact zooxanthellae - not something I had thought about before.

I can relate to a lot of the issues discussed in the RC thread - spotlighting and shadowing effects, some loss of purple/red colors - certainly that is the case with this acan, though I have a red monti that has amazingly regained its deep brick red color under my AIs after I ignorantly put it under 6500k leds in quarantine for 4 days (that was a dumb noob mistake that I will never make again). My greens look amazing in my tank and some of my purple/blue hues have remained, but this one acan has definitely shifted to an orange/yellow/green color rather than its deep red/purple. I'm very curious to try the T5 supplementing, but also wonder if I could resolve some of my issues without taking that step. For one, I really need to raise the height of my lights. I have them under my hood right now (crappy hood) and they are only 3-4 inches off the water when the tank is full. I need to either move them above my hood (which will look pretty ugly), make a new hood (which I have no clue how to do) or hang them from the ceiling and remove the top panels from my hood (which I can do, have the hanging wires, but am a little concerned that the air conditioning vent directly above the tank could cause problems by blowing debris in the tank - old building, old vents and air ducts that haven't been cleaned in years). Regardless, I need to raise them to reduce the spotlighting / coverage issues I have.

I'm also really curious to see what changes (if any) I get from the changes to color mix and intensity I made. I was literally running my blues between 0-10% for the majority of the day and only using them for dawn/dusk. Now I have them on all day running 25/25% most of the time, with my whites running 20-30% max. If I see improvements in the color spectrum, then I may just leave it awhile and see what happens. If the problem is lack of purple/red/magenta spectrum lighting, then I am very curious whether led stunner strips in those temps would work the same as T5 supplements. The posters on RC were only running their T5s for a few hours a day to supplement, I think I'd run the stunners much longer just because they are far less intense than T5s. They may have the same effect in reducing spotlighting since they would be mounted for the full length of the tank, same as the T5s. But hopefully they would avoid the bulb replacement and electricity usage issues that I'd get with the T5s. I dunno, just a lot of food for thought right now. I don't think I'm going to make any decisions soon - I need to do more research and really figure out what I want to try, what modifications I want to make after making changes to the lights I already have to get the most out of them, etc. My corals aren't dying, and I presume the acans will color up again after they are under the right kind of light even if they are under my current set up for a few more months (or am I wrong on this??)

Anyhow, thank you all for this great food for thought. Curious to hear others opinions as well!!
 
First off, I have had 3 of the AI Sol Super Blues over my tank for a little over a year now. I love them, I really do. But I have noticed some color change on the few corals that have managed to make it through a few other issues I have going on right now (mainly, a nitrate spike from overfeeding a picky fish, an Aipstaisa outbreak, and a Kleins butterfly to control said Aipstaisa)

There seems to be some good ancedotal evidence that many of the off the shelf LED fixtures with white/blue or white/blue/royal blue is missing something in the color spectrum. The consensus seems to be it is red/UV in origin. This is normally not an issue with T5 or Metal Halide lighting because some UV is given off due to how those bulbs actually produce light.

I do have played around with supplementing my AI's with some red/UV supplementation. I'd like to do some DIY LED's but my research hasn't really told me if a string of UV/red LED's is possible. Basically I'd just run a row of them in front of and behind my AI fixtures (they are mounted parallel to the tank). In order to do this, I'd have to fab up some sort of canopy to hide all the extra wiring that comes with a DIY LED fixture.

My other though was to figure out a way to mount a couple of T5's in the same way as I would mount the LED's. I figure a 48 inch bulb in front of and behind the AI's would suffice, even though I have a 6 foot tank. I'd run the Fiji Purple bulb.

Again, it is not a growth issue, as I have seen plenty of growth in corals and clams - I do not doubt the ability of the AI's to grow coral, but as I get into SPS once my tank is ready, I'd appreciate the full coloring of the corals :)
 
Most of the DIY leds that are being built now have 2-4 reds in an entire setup. The SOL's will grow some coral, but everthing that I am reading is saying what has already been posted. Some corals need more than a 2 color spectrum to thrive. They will live, but not thrive.
Look this over. You may just want to build a strip that has the colors you would like to add.
LEDs
 
fastrd400 said:
That is exactly why they make the Fiji Purple, and the Purple Plus bulbs. It adds color spectrum to the lighting.
Click to expand...

which I need to get still...... No where local carrys them so I'm stuck with an online order grrrr Hay Wade whats a good sight to get them from?
 
Northstar24 said:
I do have played around with supplementing my AI's with some red/UV supplementation. I'd like to do some DIY LED's but my research hasn't really told me if a string of UV/red LED's is possible. Basically I'd just run a row of them in front of and behind my AI fixtures (they are mounted parallel to the tank). In order to do this, I'd have to fab up some sort of canopy to hide all the extra wiring that comes with a DIY LED fixture.
Click to expand...

Have you tried any of the stunner strips North? Or have you just played around with the idea of it? I like the ecoxotic stunner strips, but only the 12" ones come in magenta and UV w/o other colors mixed in. I could add a magenta/white combo in a 48" strip, which would fit on my tank, but there isn't a UV option beyond the 12". What I'd really like is the 48" that is a magenta/UV combo, but no one has that out of the box. So now I'm looking into the DIY options. RapidLED has both UV and red solderless lights that you can plug in to their 4" 7 led plug and play terminal - not expensive, until you consider that I have a 48" tank and the wires on the lights to connect to the terminal are only 1.5" long! I figure that means I need at least 6 terminals with each light spaced an inch apart to come close to tank coverage. Oh, and the solderless LEDs are not currently available and do not offer the option for reflectors or lenses, though they are 3w LEDs so may not need them....

Are there any companies out there that do custom build LEDs? I'd love to price a build for a 48" stunner strip that alternates red and UV lights w/ optics so that I'd get decent tank coverage.

If I go the DIY route with LEDs, how much space could I / should I put between each light, with the idea of alternating red/uv, and knowing this is supplemental light only?

I'm also looking into the T5 supplemental option that Fast suggested - just a little more hesitant on that route given energy costs (trying to be concientous of the fact that my tank is at my office and I'm not the one paying the electrical bill! :shock:)
 

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