Brown Acropora

i've heard that you could get them to color up

info from this site Acropora Coral Brown

so how could this be done with lights over time or what mine is a frag and it's under HO T5s

 

Not all Acropora are going to color up. Some of them are brown because that's their color.

One day I had a wholesaler in Los Angeles ask me if I knew of anyone who wanted any brown Acropora frags and colonies. I asked him, "How much?". When he gave me the price, I said ship me every single one. I sent out an email telling all of my customers that I had inexpensive acros.....you best come get them before they color up in the store because once they color up, the price is going up. It got to the point where it was insane whenever, I would bring in more brown acros. Months later people would come in with pictures, their cameras, their camera phones and show me what they got.

If you want to grow acro's under T5's, keep your nutrient levels down. Zooxanthellae are brown and if there are too many nutrients in the system, their population within your acro will explode and your coral will never color up. Intense lighting can minimize this to a large degree because the corals will not need as many sugars from the zoox and will expell many of them. However, this can also be a recipe for disaster. If you have too many phosphates and nitrates available, you can end up with a dinoflagellate bloom.