[hahnmeister]

If your corals are brown, its usually due to one of three things from what I have seen...

1. Tank is too new/ too many organics in the water. An ammonia/nitrate spike can quickly cause corals to lose color. This is often followed up with some die-off or bleaching if too much. Phosphates can be the problem too. I often see this with established tanks that are moved... all that stirring up of organics in the sand and detritus can really cause all hell.

2. Too much light. You know, lighting in this hobby has improved in efficiency, in particular in the last 5 years. The odd thing is that our 'cookie cutter' lighting suggestions for a given size tank... or our perception of what is really needed, hasnt changed to reflect this. 8 years ago, a couple 250wattSE bulbs with a crappy flat reflectors, magnetic ballast, and 'new-at-the-time' 10,000K bulbs were the norm for say... a 75g tank.

Since then, we have seen massive improvements in the lighting area. The bulbs are about 20-30% brighter per watt, the reflectors are 2-3x better at getting the light into the water, and the ballasts (along with bulbs) are built to provide higher outputs with a longer lifespan. Yet we still suggest dual 250wattHQI bulbs for a 75gallon tank!!! Lol. AND with a 12 hour per day photoperiod. No wonder corals can brown out.

Browning out due to too much light (rather than too little) looks different. The coral's polyps are usually retracted (so they dont burn), and the coral's pigments turn brown to block out rays.

3. Too little light. Too little is easy to see, and easy to correct... just dont make any dramatic changes to correct the problem, or it will be like sticking a redhead on the beach... burn baby burn. The polyps are extended, brown, etc. the coral may look brown, but its more in the polyps... the actual coral surface may still have good coloration, or start to bleach. This is different from when you have too much light because the base color with too much light is usually brown first.

tatoofr, if you tell me more about your setup, I could tell you more about what I would suspect.