Green star polyps turning brown!!

[Bonster]

30 gal tank, 2x55 lighting, all water parimeters are fine. I dose once a week with Coral-vite. It's not near any other corals. Should I be using any other additives? It's fully opened, just turning, turned brown. Any suggestions??

Thanks

[tinyreef]

i usually change my actinics or smartlamps when my gsp's turn brownish. which brand of 55w's do you have? and how old are they?

 

btw, i used to overrun my old 55w fixture with the 65w's, check the ballast capacity, i believe most have the extra capacity rating needed for the extra 10w/bulb.

[Bonster]

Thanks for the reply. My lights are only about a month old. They started to turn brown before I got my new lights and I thought that was the reason. Shouldn't they be reacting to the new lights by now or will it take longer? Does this mean they are dieing?

Thanks

[Guy]

Same thing happened to me. I moved them from my 10 gallon under about 80 watts. To my 29 gallon; first under 2x55 watt combo bulbs, no change. I upgraded the tank to 175watt MH, still brown. I pretty much figured their brown now.

 

I am hoping someone posts a happy ending to this. I would love to get mine back to green too.

 

Guy

[tinyreef]

sorry, that's just what's worked for me in the past. right now i have a colony under my 10K's and they're brown. daughter/sister colonies under pc and vho with actinics are green.

 

i don't want to just throw darts against the wall for you so i'm hesitant to just suggest something else. but usually when i change the lights i do more maintenance stuff and that always includes higher calcium dosing. lights and calcium are decently innocent enough to try tinkering with. sorry, i couldn't be more helpful.

[reiple]

I experienced something strange about my star polyps too. They did not turn brown just keep close and none of the polyps opened. So I moved it too 2 other locations. Bang! It opened up like it said "HEY!!! YOU FINALLY PLACED ME RIGHT!". Kidding aside, try moving it to another location. Consider light/shade/water movement.

 

Keep Reefin'

[Bonster]

Thanks for your replys. I've moved these buggers 3 times. No change. At the moment I would say they are in moderate to high lighting and mod to high water movement. I just thought I might be able to add something to enhance their color. I can live with them being brown but green would be better.

Thanks

[tinyreef]

just one thought, true actinics (not smartlamps or 'blue') seemed to get a better reaction for me. a couple a years back i switched to coralife's actinic and noticed this versus the 'blue' and smartlamps i had been using. you should notice fluorescing from the actinics very quickly (from smaller wavelengths of light ??? )

 

guy,

you may want to try a cheap NO actinic supplement just to try out over the tank. i find the small pc actinic's and larger non-coralife ones to be crappie. vho is the way to go but a little $$$ for experimenting.

[harbingerofthefish]

Do gsp use chemical warefare? I have some new polyps and today I noticed that they had some purple "smoke" coming from them. All my parameters seem in line, hell they are almost identical to the store I got them from. But to day, the smoke, it stopped after a minute or so, and a water change was done afterward. It this as serious I believe it to be?

[Bonster]

Smokin gsp's. WOW! I thought I had problems!!!

[Metznreef]

i think your gsp's have a drug problem. they light up the J everytime you leave the room and they were too high to remember to put it out and caught their dreadlocks on fire. i suggest you enter them in a rehab program for reefers(pun intended)

 

 

-----on a more serious note, it may be breading behavior. instead of there their normal A-sexual reproduction, they may be reproducing sexually. just a possibility.

[Dave ESPI]

try an area of less ilumination. often corals will ditch the bright flourocene pigments, and go brown in bright light areas.. it is kinda like a melanin response in humans who "Tan". dose with DT's too. and some puree seafoods.