How do I brighten my acros?

[hotrodder]

I have about 15 acros from the wild. When I got them, they were very colorful. Some are now browning, especially the blues and purples. I have 3X250 Watt MH, 4X96 Watt 420Nm Actinic. I have them as close as possible to the light source. All water params are perfect. Any help would be appreciated.

My blue and purple acros are about 6 inches from the water surface. Lights are about 5 inches from the water. Tank is 24 inches deep.

Oh yeah, I have about 9 fish

 

[brandonberry]

When you say water parameters are perfect, what kind of test do you use for phosphates? Most tests do not detect the lower levels that could be contributing to browning out. Try running some GFO media, if you are not already. When I started doing this, it really made the biggest difference in the coloring of my acros. Also, what 250w bulbs are you using. Have you read Sanjay Joshi's articles on spectral anaysis of bulbs? When I started using the bulbs that he lists as having the higher PAR values, that also helped a lot.

 

[hotrodder]

I am using Salifert test kits for everything. I even used the higher sensitivity test for the phosphate. Phosphate always reads zero. My bulbs are the bulbs that came with the Coralife Aqua pro 72 in. They are 10,000 K bulbs.

I am not using any phosphate remover because I didn't think it was necessary. Thanks for the quick reply.