Polyps turning brown

[LFBLACK]

I have polyps in my reef tank that have lost their color. They have been in my tank (75 ga) for a year. They are long and brown in color. Any ideas?

 

[chichimom79]

Welcome aboard! What kind of lighting do you have and what are your water parameters?

 

[LFBLACK]

I have power compact 2 X 65, and HO 2 X 55. My water using Red Sea Coral Pro. My water tests are good.

 

[chichimom79]

how old are your bulbs and what are your nitrates and phosphates specifically?

 

[RockStacker]

Can you post a picture of the corals?
Usually elongated polyp stalks are an indication that the corals are not getting enough light.

 

[LFBLACK]

 

[LFBLACK]

The bulbs are about 10 months. The PC's are 10,000. The HO's are 50/50 Actinic.
The water test is Salinity: 1.023, Phosphates: 0.5.
Hardness: 8.8, PH: 8.0, Ca: 480, Nitrates: 0,

 

[RockStacker]

From the picture it does look like the corals are stretching to get more light.

 

[LFBLACK]

Yea, we were thinking that the lights were either worn out or need to get better ones. I was looking at the TAOTronic 102W adjustable LED. We don't have much experience with polys. The thing that was confusing to us was the recommendation of them "polyps" not needing much light.

 

[LFBLACK]

Correction.
Yea, we were thinking that the lights were either worn out or need to get better ones. I was looking at the TAOTronic 120W adjustable LED. We don't have much experience with polyps. The thing that was confusing to us was the recommendation of them "polyps" not needing much light.

 

[RockStacker]

We don't have much experience with polyps. The thing that was confusing to us was the recommendation of them "polyps" not needing much light.

That is what is confusing in this hobby :)
When people say "they dont need much light", there is a question of what kind of light are they actually talking about?
"A little bit" of Metal Halide light is still magnitudes more intense than a PC bulb at full intensity.

Different lights also have different depth penetration, so a PC bulb may be a good/cheap alternative for a very shallow tank but it will be near useless for anything deeper than 12 inches.

I think with your tank, the only fixture that is giving your corals usable light are the HO bulbs. The PC bulbs may be providing illumination to the tank, but not a lot of photo-active radiation (PAR)

If you do get the TaoTronic LED (or similar), make sure to start with the lowest possible intensity. Then gradually ramp up the intensity over a period of time.
LED's are so much stronger than PC and HO lamps and switching the corals to bright LED's all of a sudden can kill them.

 

[LFBLACK]

Thanks for the info. I was thinking along the same line but wanted other opinons.
:-)