Enhance Coral Colours?

[Uncle99]

interested in anyone out their that have an opinion on if corals colours can be enhanced.
I have many softies and LPS type corals and Wonder what RedSea Colours Product does for corals.
My colours are great now, cycled about 18 months ago, I am just curious what this stuff can do....or is just another additive that I don't need.
Some say dose iodine.....is this true?

 

[DaveK]

I'd say the best way to have good colors in your corals is controlled by many factors.

Obviously, you need to start with corals the have some good colors to start with. If you put in a brown leather coral, it's still going to look brown no matter how good the environment you create for it is.

Good lighting is what I'd consider to be the next most important factor. Many people don't use enough quality light. There is also to factor of the colors in the lighting used. No doubt you have seen tanks that use a lot of blue to make the coral corals really glow. Personally I feel that this is over doing it, but it does show that the light you display them under also is a factor. Note how many LFSs display their corals under 20,000K lighting.

Feeding corals is only critical to ones that need it or can benefit from it. If you have a coral that you want to feed make sure you use something it can actually use. Some corals can take massive food chunks. Others need to extremely fine.

I'm not a big fan of various color enhancing products but you can try the, I'd buy minimum amounts first, to make sure they will really do something for you.

On dosing iodine. I don't do it and I don't recommend it. If you are going to try dosing iodine, get a test kit and use it. Do not over dose iodine. It can be very toxic. Better to have too little than too much here.

 

[Uncle99]

Thanks DaveK.
Based on that I am in line with what you have suggested now, I am not going to try any Chemical enhancers as I am not sure what their short or long term effects might be on my corals. I was dosing my tanks the minimal amount and within acceptable test levels for years but can't say what the advantage is.....so we are going to slowly lower the iodine to zero and see if any change occurs. Some say iodine helps shrimps molt....lets see what he can do without.....thank again...

 

[Oxylebius]

If you do go with this dosing route for those Red Sea colors, I would recommend that you also buy the Red Sea testing kits for those major and minor elements to make sure that your tank stays within natural limits. https://www.redseafish.com/coral-coloration-program/coral-colors-pro-test-kit/

If you also go this route make sure that the dosing of these Red Sea colors is consistent with the amount of Ca and Alk the colors are taking in per day, some dosing may be as low as 1ml per day or less. Very small.

And be aware that some two part dosing regimes also include various major and minor elements as well, you don't want to dose the Red Sea colors on top of those dosing regimes that also have these same major and minor elements already in them, as you would then be double dosing.

 

[Uncle99]

Thank you Oxylebius for this great input.
When reading up on the Red Sea Colours, it seems it only may affects the pinks, and to what extent Nobody seems to know.
It would seem that any benefit would be minor.....so likely not worth the investment in my opinion. That's not to say the stuff does work, Red Sea makes some great stuff.