Suggestions on getting my Milli to color up again

[gooliver]

I bought a Blue Milli colony from a local reefer about a year ago.
I placed it in my 90G reef high up on the rocks and i was running 10k XM 250W SE at the time. It did very well and stayed a beautiful navy blue color.

I upgraded to a 180G reef back about 4 months ago and although the milli appears healthy and has almost doubled in size, the color is more of a brown\green with blue tips. I really miss the all blue look. It is now placed under 14k Hamiltons 250W SE lights about 1/4 way down the tank.

I'm thinking maybe it needs to be placed closer to the light...what do you guys think?
anyone have this happen to them before?

thanks

[Rob]

thats a million $$ question..
getting coral coloration is an art in most tanks..
make sure Ca, Alk and Mg level are right (yes it does have an affect)
you can try different types of coral foods or enhancers but i haven't found any that work

you can try different positions, different current, increase actinic lighting, there are a million things none, or all may help.

sorry wish i could be more helpful.. maybe someone else has a better idea..

[iglowce]

besides keeping ur parameters perfect, theres nothing u can do really. and in some cases (or actually many cases) even the perfect parameters wont guarantee nice coloration. i guess its just a natural wonder none of our reefers can fully understand =]

[gooliver]

well...moved it up higher to see what will happen. I talked to a fellow reefer who told me that corals often change colors under different temp bulbs. i went from 10k to 14k which might have been a factor

[Rob]

Originally Posted by gooliver

well...moved it up higher to see what will happen. I talked to a fellow reefer who told me that corals often change colors under different temp bulbs. i went from 10k to 14k which might have been a factor

yep, but this is more often the change it the light more than the change in the coral..
for example.. if you have blue shirt under normal "white light" it looks blue.. what happened with it under "yellow" light... obviously it looks different, but has the shirt really changed?

dont get me wrong this is not a bad thing, you can do this and sometimes it does actually cause the coral to change, but more often its perception because of this.,..