what is up with my tort!? :) [poor coloration]

[unsped]

this is my tort as it stands today, very washed out, brown body with purple/blue tips. although it has been growing.



my tank is 40gallons with (2) 150w DE's (1 20k radium, 1 10k blv). i use NSW and dose strontium, bionic and kalk. light duration is currently about 10 hours.

the piece is high up in the tank, maybe 5 inches from the surface, and the halides are currently 12inches above the tank as im still lowering them from my acclimation process.

the tort used to look like this:
(this was in a very shallow prop tank with a single aquaconnect 14k bulb over it) it started developing alot of green on the body.



now it looks more like the ORA fiji purple tip LOL maybe they switched the baby's at birth




any ideas? my recent thinking is that its not getting enough light, so ive been slowly lowering my halides.

[gooberz]

Looks a little bleached IMHO, I would lower it to the bottom and give it good flow and see what happens.

Cheers,
Henry

[greenbean36191]

If I remember correctly ORA recommends lower light for the the best coloration of their torts. The higher the lighting the more washed out it looks.

[Chin_monster]

It's just adapting to different lighting and intensities. The ORA tort's do seem to loose color to shipping "stresses".

These are some that I picked up a couple weeks back, straight out of the shipping box from ORA.



This is the first one I got. The "turd brown" tort, rather than blue. Boy, was I unhappy about it.



And finally, several months later (second from the bottom in the pic)

[DT's_Reef]

Chin, approximately how far is your tort from your lights? And of course, what ballast and bulb(s) are you using?

What do you feed your tank?

I'm experiencing the same thing as unsped with my tort, and suspect it's actually a form of bleaching. It's a very slow process that doesn't seem to kill the coral, but seems to keep it from thriving. This can go on for many months.

I've got tons of light (2x250w Giesemann 14.5k), flow (Stream pumps), excellent CA/dKH, etc. Sometimes I'm tempted to put my lights up much higher to see if it makes a positive difference in coral coloring.

[Chin_monster]

They are in trays in about 2" of water within maybe 8" of a 250 watt 6K GE bulb and maybe 12" of a 400 watt 12K Sunburst (don't like any of these bulbs but am going to use them up first). The ballasts are the ASM "green HQI" ones, both 250 and 400 watt versions.

I don't really feed anything. Just whatever the tank produces.



The tank is bare bottomed, excessively skimmed (ER 8-2), intensely lit (2 -250 and a 400) and heavily circulated (2 -6000 and 2 -6060 Tunze Streams). It's dimensions are 30" X 30" X 24".

[jackson6745]

IMO, The side of the tort facing the light seems to have more color. I would think it needs more light

[AWExotics]

IMO I would opt for more light as oppossed to less light:

Here is the most recent pic of my ORA tort:



Here is some torts shortly after receiving them from ORA: These are about 6" below the water in a 60 gallon with 2 x 175 W SE Halides (one 20K 0ne 10K) this is just off center more under the 10K side. Lighting IMO is poor in this tank becaues of a poor reflector setup and limited space.



Here is the tort from the original picture shortly after its arrival in March.




In the first and third pics, the tort is an average of 6" below the water. Lighting is 2 x 250W DE 14K hamiltons and 1 x 150 W DE 20 K Ushio/Hamilton. Lights are usually 4" above the water and this coral is right between a 250 and the 150. IMO fairly intense lighting.

Color is awesome.

With that said some ORA corals do lose color in the shipping process. Chip's Acro is one that is notorious for that. They are however extremely hardy and color up fairly quickly.

Consisitency is key, and I believe for Unsped's tort it is showing this discoloration because of the recent changes in lighting and aquariums. I have only tinkered with my tort (1st and 3rd pic) to reglue it down a couple times. I keep the ORA pegs on alot of them to help lift the coral away from nearby corals (to prevent aggression) and also to designate which are ORA and which are not.

Todd

[jackson6745]

Todd, I see a bunch of red X's

[AWExotics]

still?? They are loading up fine for me

[Bigmike]

me too... IMO my ORA tort colored up really low in my tank, maybe 10 inches down, and when I only had 175 W as well... go figure

[greenbean36191]

Here is the thread where Dustin Dorton from ORA shows the different coloration from different light levels.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=366259&perpage=25&pagenumber=2

[JB NY]

High light and low light, I've seen torts do well color wise. It's your water quality.

Let's talk about water movement in an SPS tank

[DT's_Reef]

Originally posted by JB NY
High light and low light, I've seen torts do well color wise. It's your water quality.

Let's talk about water movement in an SPS tank

Yeah, you'd think it is (and maybe it is...) but everything tests to be ideal, I change carbon once a month (Marine Black Diamond), feed sparingly by anyone's standard, have a Tunze Stream system blasting current everywhere, EuroReef CS8-2 sucking the crud out of the water, ORP is consistently 420-440's (except when doing water changes), dKH is 8 and Calcium is 440. I do a 10% water change each week. Halide bulbs are less than a month old. I have a barebottom tank too (well actually 1/8" of coral rubble that I vacuum with water changes).

The funny part is that when I was waiting for my new lighting system (Giesemann 230 Plus), I used about 200w of T5 lighting (Tek Light) only and my corals colored up considerably better! My tort turned solid blue again. My Efflo. turned purple/green. This is over a month period.

This seems to go against the "need more light" theory.

[Dog boy Dave]

I would second JB's comment. You didnt post your alkalinity. If you didnt check it today it has probably changed. Is it a new tank? Check the trinity (Ca-Alk-NA)

[JB NY]

oops I meant to post this link.

Let's talk about water quality in an SPS tank.

[fuzyfuzer]

Originally posted by Dog boy Dave
I would second JB's comment. You didnt post your alkalinity. If you didnt check it today it has probably changed. Is it a new tank? Check the trinity (Ca-Alk-NA)

Whats NA

[AWExotics]

I am guessing he meant NO3 -Nitrates?

[prafferty]

No one has mentioned phosphates, unless I missed it. If yours are high it will inhibit growth and subsequently coloration. Strontium in high counts isnt good either. Do you test to see that it is need or just dose?

[Aged Salt]

NA=salinity. Bob

[AWExotics]

doh.. I am a bad guesser =)

[Aged Salt]

Todd, I would not have guess it either but for the trinity thingy. Bob

[unsped]

lol,

i use NSW from the college, I have no fish in the tank, I do not feed the tank, and I have a euroreef 5-3 that does a very good job. so i really doubt its phosphates/nitrates.

although i do use carbon in the sump, which i guess could be poor quality and adding organics.

the rock also came out of a sump where it had been cured for at least 2 years.

the alkalinity is not the highest, but i generally try and avoid really high alk (12dkh) i try and keep it around 9dkh or so.

however it was my understanding that alk based color problems manifest very easily in green cap. right above the tort in the picture is a nice green cap with good coloration.

yes the tank is very new, maybe 2 months uptime total, like i said though the rock was completely cured.

i appreciate your comments.

my CA = 405-410
my NA = 1.0275
my TEMP = 79-80

i am thinking about switching over to a mixed salt, the NSW is pretty unfiltered, low in buffers etc..

[sberman]

bring the salinity down and what is your mg level

[unsped]

the salinity is what the NSW is, i could bring it down but would require me to thin all future waterchanges.

i dont test magnesium currently