Coral Pigmentation Food

[seabass]

About once a year I like to highlight an interesting product that I've come across. This year, our local reef club (the Greater Iowa Reef Society) hosted a guest speaker from Seascape Aquatics, which provided samples of their new line of Vivid Pigmented Coral Food in exchange for reviews containing before and after pictures. It pretty much does what they say it will (tints coral). Their rep said they are working on adding to their color choices, as well as finalizing details with BRS and Amazon Fulfillment to distribute their product.

 

 

   VIVID®

 

 

Vivid® is an innovative coral pigmentation supplement that will feed and tint your corals but won't discolor your tank's water or stain live rock.  It contains a high quality coral food and is completely reef safe.  The resulting color change will not interfere with photosynthesis or harm any of the animals within your tank.

 

Vivid® is a powdered mixture of coral food and organic dye infused in calcium carbonate (CaCO3), which is insoluble at reef pH levels.  The dye is only released as the CaC03 is dissolved within the acidic digestive tract of the animal which ingested the food.

 

Calcium carbonate is completely safe and a natural component in all corals. In addition to the skeletal structures of stony corals, soft corals also support their fleshy structures with tiny sclerites which are made up of calcium carbonate.

 

Fish and higher inverts process and expel the pigmented food as a normal waste product.  However, corals and anemones are not able to filter out the food's organic dye, which tints the fleshy parts of these animals.  Coloration will last for several months.

 

Broadcast feeding will tint all of the corals a similar shade.  It's possible to change colors by letting previous colors fade first. Mixing colors while broadcast feeding results in a muddy brown color, which will fade over time.  Like any coral food, feed sparingly, no more than twice a week.  Over feeding can result in high nutrient and phosphate levels.

 

New growth, subsequent to feeding, will not be colored.  Continued feeding ensures vibrant colors and coloration of new growth.  Colors include: Lime Green, Royal Purple, Scarlet Red, Super Pink, and Tangerine Orange.  Mixing colors is possible when target feeding individual corals.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Interesting. So this doesn't necessarily 'enhance' a coral's natural color, but can change the tint based on the dye that is being fed to the coral? For example, a coral that's naturally brownish in shade can be fed Royal Purple, and will become Royal Purple? (Or am I reading/understanding this wrongly (?) ) 🤔

[seabass]

I'd assume that lighter colored corals would exhibit more pronounced color changes.  Plus, you'd probably want to pick a complementary color; so you wouldn't necessarily want to pick Lime Green to dye a red coral.

 

 

 

 

19 hours ago, seabass said:

About once a year I like to highlight an interesting product that I've come across.

OK, sorry, this should have actually read, "On April 1st, I like to post an April Fools' Day post."  Here are a few from previous years:

• https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/419013-a-treatment-for-dinos-that-really-works/
• https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/412007-genetically-modified-tangs/
• https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/405045-a-new-designer-clownfish-nemo-for-kids/
• https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/390639-proposed-ban-on-corals-with-palytoxin/
• https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/372329-three-ways-to-increase-coral-growth-in-your-tank/

 

[Pjanssen]

So would you try to spot feed multi colors so that all of your corals aren't 1 color, or would that create the muddy color mentioned? For example, if I have 3 torches that are 3 different colors and want to enhance the coloration of each of them would I try to feed green to one purple to another and orange to another? 

[seabass]

These are just a few of the wild things that pop into my head.  I'm pretty sure that nobody has ever tried anything like this.  But it does contain "shades" of plausibility.

 

I know that dyed corals weren't all that uncommon when I started reef keeping.  I'm not sure what they used (probably just Rit fabric dye).  They sold some pretty amazing looking soft corals; however, I was told that the process affected the health of the coral, so most legit dealers tried to stay away from dyed corals.

[NatureGuy]

Wouldn’t this impede our ability to tell if a coral is bleaching? Assuming the pigment overpowers the color of the zooxanthellae 

[seabass]

Yeah, coloration is one of the prime indicators of coral health.  I suspect that it would be harder to determine the health of a dyed coral; although there should still be other signs to look for.