Green buttons turning brown

[edrive]

I recently purchased a large colony of green button polyps. After about a day & half of being in my tank the centers have started turning brown. The water parameters are great & I have a few other SPS that have been thriving for over 2 years. Any ideas as to why this is happening or what I can do to keep that brilliant green center of the polyps?

* Tank size = 55gal
* Lighting = 4x65 watt w/lunars (2x10k & 2xactinic)
* Fish = 1 half black angel, 1 yellow tang, 1 scooter blenny & 1 lawnmower blenny
* Inverts = snails, cleaner shrimp, blue legged hermits
* Corals = colt, finger leather, bullseye mushroom, striped mushrooms
* Nitrates, nitrite, phosphates, PH, ammonia etc. are all balanced
* Salinity is 1.023
* Skimmer is working good
* Filtration = Fluval 404 & HOTB Eclipse

Any help/advice you can offer is greatly appreciated!

[Caesar777]

I'll bet it's the lighting. They need to be high up on the rocks, top 1/3 of the tank, to keep the green.

[edrive]

Thanks. I'll try that. My LFS rep told me to keep them at the bottom of the tank & out of strong current....??

[kass03]

I would try moving them up also.
I had pc's on my 55 plus 80 watts of NO and my green palys were about 7 inches from the top and doing well. Stayed very green.
Now that I switched to T5's I moved them down a bit.

kass

[edrive]

I moved them up & within an hour the green started to come back out. What are your thoughts on water flow with the polyps? Should they be away from direct current, in it, or what?

Thanks!

[reefmaint]

STRONG SURGE!!! thats the area's io usualy find them in.. ( on the jeetys they thrive.. water slaming into them all day and everything!

[edrive]

Thanks reefmaint. I have them in moderate flow right now, but I could move them closer to the current.

[Caesar777]

Mine are directly by the return, and they love it. Vibrant emerald green.

[reefmaint]

If i had them on my return i would DEFINITLY use a scwd or an OM squirt..

[Caesar777]

Nah--they're fine. They're just buttons. If they were acros, sure.

[edrive]

For some reason they are turning brown again. Good current & at the top of the tank. Anything else you can think of or anything specifically I should test for?

Thanks in advance.

[Caesar777]

How old are your bulbs? That's all I can think of.

[edrive]

They're about a year old. Should I replace them now?

[SuperFishy]

yeah, replacement time

[Caesar777]

Yup--that'd be it. Fluo bulbs tend to "go bad" around 6 months. Not only will the colors look poorer, but it can encourage hair algae growth, according to what I've heard and seen personally (diatom blooms, etc.).

[Caesar777]

Just replacing the white bulbs should be fine, but I might be wrong. It'd be a good thing to look into--whether it matters how old actinic bulbs are.

[my2girls]

* Nitrates, nitrite, phosphates, PH, ammonia etc. are all balanced
* Skimmer is working good

[/B][/QUOTE]

Not to be picky, but this does not tell us much. This information is subjective. What are the actual test readings? How about your temp?

[edrive]

Nitrate = 20ppm
ammonia = 0
nitrite = 0
ph = 8.2
phosphates = 0

I am going to do a water change & test again in a day or so & maybe add some buffer. I think I'll also invest in some replacement bulbs.

Here's one thing that I'm confused about. On here I've been told to move the polyps to the top of the tank & water flow is good for them. However, I've been told by 3 different pretty reliable LFS employees (each from different LFS) to move them down in the tank & don't keep them in a high water flow area. I suppose I'll just have to play around a bit with them & see if they like one area better than the other. Not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier post but I do add calcium daily & iodine once a week.

What are your thoughts? Thanks!

PS...Ceasar777, is your avatar from a movie or what? That's pretty intense!

[Caesar777]

I dunno, IME, and from what others have seen, they should be up high to keep the green.

It's from a "music video". Used to be into them as a teen, now they don't strike me with the same fascination...except for the guy who does this music, and the guy who directed the video (Chris Cunningham).

[Caesar777]

Well, can't make it not shrink the pic. Oh well.

[edrive]

I moved them down in the tank & away from water flow (per the LFT people) & they don't open up. I'm going to move them back up & put them in decent waterflow & see what happens.

Caesar....whose video is it from? (NIN, Tool, etc.)

[xacttech]

Sorry to Hijack...

It's from Come to Daddy, Aphex Twin, directed by Chris Cunningham.

Who has directed some AMAZING videos, I encourage everyone to check out his DVD compliation.

[edrive]

No problem...I was wondering who made the vid...the avatar is pretty intense!

[Caesar777]

Yeah...The song and video were supposedly a parody of the Prodigy stuff--Aphex Twin's other stuff is nothing like it. "Acid house", they call it. He's done a lot of weird joke stuff, like his all-ambient album. But yeah...Cunningham has done some awesome videos--except that stupid Madonna one. Aphex Twin got an offer of a million pounds to do a song with Madonna, and he turned it down because he didn't care about the money, he just wouldn't want to work with someone like that.

[edrive]

Well, after a 25% water change, new 10k bulbs & a bit of prayer my zoos are getting their bright green centers back. I have taken a few pics but I can't post them because of the file size.

Any suggestions on how I can get these pics to a lower file size so I can post some pics?

Thanks again to everyone who offered advice. I really appreciate it & so do my zoos!!