Why do corals lose color?

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tony1021

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
May 18, 2009
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I've noticed about 3 of my ricordeas have lost color. When I bought them few months ago they were under PC's and were bright green, blue, and orange. Of the 5 rics I have 3 have suffered from color loss and 1 of them (orange) looks semi transparent.

Everything else in the tank is great, especially under my new MH :D
 
It could be for a couple reasons. Not enough lighting to water parameters not being where they need to be. Post you water test results so we can rule that out.
 
water parameters are on average 0 nitrites and ammonia, PH at 8.0-8.4, nitrates 10-20 ppm, calcium 400-450...
i test weekly and this is the constant average for my water parameters.

i just got MH 150HQI with 15k bulb and 2 T5 24w bulbs...upgrade from previous 2x65watt PC

will i regain any color with new lights?
 
You may just be seeing a different color due to the different k value of your lights or that your roos need to get used to the new light intensity.
What is your Alk and temp. reading?
 
Mushrooms are low light corals. You need to keep them at the bottom of the tank under MH lighting. I have mushrooms that basically are the same way. The colors are washed out under my MH lighting, but the shroom frags I sell to people with less powerful lighting always color back up.
I would not expect them to totally color back up under your MH lighting.
 
These are ricordias, so they enjoy more light than most mushrooms. They should be fine so long as they are not too close to the top.

Different lights will cause corals to change colour. Most of the colour come from the zooxanthellae. I have an acro coral that was a much nicer blue in the LFS but in my tank it has become more of a purple brown.
 
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