Some corals are fading

My tank had been up and running for a month now and I'm starting to notice some fading in the colors of some of the corals. I have a purple hammer that has kinda faded to pink, some zoas a friend gave me were darker green and they have faded to lighter greeen, some blue xenia has lost most of the blue tint, and a orange digi frag I got has faded to tan, and white in some places. They are fading but all the plolyps are out and active.

The lights are brand new 1 month use 12hrs a day 2 x 96W PCs 1000K and actinic. I use red sea coral pro salt. Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate are all 0. All the fish I have are doing great, just noticing color loss in some of the corals but not all. The darker red zoas I have, and the red and blue zoas, and the GSP all look good.

I'm making up a batch of water to do a 25% water change now. Any Ideas?

 

could be trading out zooxanthaila for more adapt ones.

 

Your lights may also not be powerful enough.. PC is decent, but for a 46, I honestly think you need Halide, T5, or VHO.. especially for LPS, as 96 watts of PC might not be sufficient. I had 80 watt PC's on my 16 gallon. I upgraded to 96w T5's. Also wattage is not the best representation for light output. Reflectors, ballasts, end caps, and bulbs make a huge difference. Zoas should be fine under these lights.. IDK, I could be wrong, but that might explain the fading.. what kind of lighting did they have where you got the coral from? 10Acre makes a good point, too. Could be both!

 

don't forget SPS, they need the most light.

got any pictures?

 

Another question.. your tank has been up for a month, or your new lights have been up for a month? If it's a new fixture, your gonna experience this, the corals have to adjust to new lights..

 

The Hammer I got and most of the zoas were grown in a greenhouse with actinic VHO supplements and all of the others under VHOs

 

True that, miss the SPS! Just checked out your thread, was all of this livestock added at once?

 

No i get a few things every week. Not everything was added at once. I've been thinking of getting t5 lights and selling this PC fixture.

Well, I just bit the bullet and decided to go ahead and order a Nova Extreme Pro T5 fixture 6x39W. I was gonna order the outer orbit HQI/T5 but it's too wide for the 46 tank the tank is only 12" deep on sides and the HQI fixture was 15" deep.

 

T5's are nice, I did the same thing, ordered PC's... only to buy T5's. Don't add anything to you tank for a while, that's a lot of stock for a month old tank, unless it's actually older. Let your tank catch up with the bio load! Nice fish, I just got a sixline, luv him! Good luck!

 

WOW, is all I have to say. I got my new light in today and put it on the tank. Corals instantly looked better in the new light. More vibrant colors.