need help with orange digi....

[Naperville Reef]

recently my tank (20L) has gone through a major transformation. over a 3 week period i removed my SB and replaced all my live rock and turned my tank into a BB. unfortunately the LR i bought was uncured, even though i was told differently, and my tank went through a short cycle. my SPS were VERY stressed and lost lots of color. they all survived although i did have to frag one that was STNing. (all the frags survived and look great by the way).

current readings are(using all Salifert test kits):

1.026 (using Tropic Marin salt)
NO2 0
NH4 0
NO3 0
PO4 0
Ca 380
Alk 10.6dKH
Mg 1200
pH 8.1

i just purchased some Kent Tech M to bring up my Mg which was recently tested at 1110. my Ca has been pretty stable but my Alk has bounced around in the range of 8.6 to 10.6 dKH.

now on to my problem........ ALL of my SPS are regaining their color and some look better than before. i have an orange digi that was a deep orange but over the last few days it has started to turn pinkish. it still has GREAT polyp extension. i know, or think, there is not a pink montipora digitata so i don't understand why this is happening. i tried taking a picture but my camera does not have a macro function and they all turned out rather blurry.

could the recent increase in Mg be causing this?
is the orange color just fading?
should i start fragging this and charging $100 per inch for my recently discovered PINK digi????


seriously, any thoughts????????

[PL-Reef]

have you changed your lighting?

[Naperville Reef]

lighting remains the same, 150w Reeflux12k.

it is positioned about the same as well. same spot just about 4" lower.

[toothman]

I think it is fairly common for most sps to be quite a bit lighter with less nutrients in the water. Being bb is proof. With a sand bed it harder to get super low nutrients. But I really think the super hype regarding no feeding, no fish and super low nutrients a flawed plan. The coral will eventually starve. Sps love to eat and grow quicker and can be most colorful with phosphate at levels between .01 and .03. Also a good quantity of fish are very helpful to make sps food.

I also had a orange cap that will turn pink when the phosphate etc are super low and will get almost to brick red when I feed the tank alot. Monti digi and caps change color quite easily with different conditions.

[Naperville Reef]

thanks for the replys. any other thoughts?

the digi base is now stark white and the polyps are very light as well but it still has very good polyp extension.

could it be bleaching? would i still have good PE if it were bleaching? my purple digi is doing great as are all my other SPS. i moved the orange digi to the other side of the tank and a little higher up. closer to where it was prior to going BB.

thanks for the help.

[PL-Reef]

i've noticed the purple digis do better (color) up high in the reef. and my orange and pink digis grow better in less light.

[SDguy]

I had an orange digi in my old tank that turned white hot pink. It was a high nutrient tank. I think the 250W DE 14K phoenix was too bright for it. It was about half way down the tank (24" tall tank). JMO/E.

[Naperville Reef]

here are the before and after pics. the digi pictured in the after pic was a frag from the original that grew quite well for a few months.

BEFORE

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p86/robharbour/IMG_2952.jpg

AFTER

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p86/robharbour/IMG_3541.jpg