本文翻译：Old-School 译文链接：http://www.cmfish.com/BBS/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=359859&extra=page%3D1
For the most part I am pretty happy with the coloration of my corals, like everyone else I also want to make sure that I am doing everything I can to maximize their coloration, after all the wonderful colors of our corals is what now makes so many of them expensive. While I was putting together this piece I decided to get the recommendations and thoughts from some of my friends who I think have really great colored corals. So I asked Jason Fox, Sanjay Joshi, Mike Biggar, Cruz Arias and Julian Hechavarria of Elegant Corals, Ben VanderNoort and Brett Harris of Cherry Corals for their input.
大多数情况下我对我养的珊瑚的颜色感到很满意，像其他人一样，我也想要尽我最大可 能让它们的颜色更饱和好看，毕竟正是这些色彩缤纷的颜色才使的这些珊瑚这么昂贵。当我要写这篇文章的时候我决定从我的一些朋友那里征询一些他们的建议和想 法，因为这些朋友的礁岩缸里养着有很棒颜色的珊瑚。 他们是Jason Fox, Sanjay Joshi, Mike Biggar, Cruz Arias and Julian Hechavarria of Elegant Corals, Ben VanderNoort and Brett Harris of Cherry Corals（注：都是美国那边玩珊瑚的大咖）。
This article is not a scientific treatise explaining how one specific fluorescing pigment or a specific clade of Zooxanthellae affects the colors in our sps corals, but rather it is my attempt to find the consensus among these successful hobbyists as to what we can do to maximize the colors in our sps corals. While I am primarily focusing on how to maximize the coloration in sps corals, specifically Acropora, here, following what is discussed will also help get the best colors and health from your other corals as well.
这篇文章不是一篇解释如何一个特定的荧光色素或一个特定分支的虫黄藻影响我们 SPS珊瑚颜色的科学论文，而是我试图从这些养殖成功的爱好者经验中找到可以让我们的SPS珊瑚颜色达到最好的一些共识。在这里我主要关注如何让SPS珊 瑚颜色达到最好状态，专门指鹿角珊瑚，这些经验也有助于其他珊瑚达到最佳颜色和健康状态。
The first thing they all agree on is start off with brightly colored corals. Luckily unlike the early days of the hobby when most of the sps corals were brown, now most of the corals we see are brightly colored from the start. This is especially true of the countless “designer” frags that are now available. Please note when I am discussing optimizing the colors in our corals I don’t mean to get them to the point where they look like the photoshopped, over-saturated corals that we see from some vendors online, but rather to bring out the true colors of these corals, which to my eyes are still quite incredible.
他们全体同意的第一件事是开始就要选择颜色鲜艳好的珊瑚购买。幸运的是与早期的爱 好者不同，当时大部分SPS珊瑚都是棕色的。现在我们就很容易找到颜色好的珊瑚。请注意当我说到提升我们珊瑚颜色的时候，我不是指的把珊瑚颜色搞成像某些 出售珊瑚的商家网站贴出的经过photoshop处理过的过度饱和的颜色，而是让珊瑚显现出它们自身本应有的真实的颜色，即使这些本色要我来看仍然是令人 难以置信的。
Once you have acquired colored corals you want, the next step is to light them properly. This used to mean blasting them with as strong a light as possible for as long as possible. Fortunately with the advent of LED lights and more efficient metal halides and t-5 bulbs we have found that replicating the sun is no longer necessary to get the best colors out of your corals.
一旦你获得你想要的彩色珊瑚, 下一步就是让它们得到合适的光照，通常意味着尽可能强、尽可能长时间的光照。幸运的是随着LED灯和效率更高的金属卤素灯及t5灯泡我们发现复制太阳不再有必要，通过这些人造光源同样能让我们的珊瑚达到最佳的颜色状态。
Unlike the other choices in lighting LEDs focus the majority of the light they produce down directly on to the corals. So while a tank lighted with LEDs may look less bright than one lit with metal halides, the reality may be that the corals are actually getting more light focused on them. As a result, corals need to be acclimated slowly to this type of lighting. These lights are so efficient that rarely is it necessary to run them at full power. The general consensus is that a PAR of 450-650 umol is good to maximize the color for most of our sps.
与其它的光照选项不同，LED发射出来的光大部分聚焦直接投射到珊瑚上。所以用 led照射的礁岩缸可能看起来不如一个用金属卤素灯照射的那么透亮，实际情况可能是led有过多的光线集中投射在珊瑚上。因此，珊瑚需要慢慢适应这种类型 的光源。这些人造光源是如此有效，通常不是很必要满功率运行它们。普遍的共识是大多数SPS珊瑚在光照PAR值450-650 umol 的情况下即可让它们达到很好的颜色状态。
In my own experiment this summer where I set up a tank so that it would receive direct sunlight for 4-6 hours per day, during this time the light PAR on the tank reached over 1250 umol. Even though this lighting duration was for a shorter period of time than we run most lights on our tanks the Acropora in this tank initially turned brown after a couple of weeks in this light and then eventually bleached out. So even though this is Pennsylvania, the intensity of the light was too much due to the shallowness of the tank. I should point out that during the phase when the Acroporas were turning brown, the corals looked very much like the corals I’ve seen on the reefs with there being very little color on them other than brown.
我自己做的实验，今年夏天建了一缸，以便它能接收阳光直接照射，每天 4-6 小时，在这段时间对礁岩缸的光照超过1250 umol。尽管此太阳关照射持续时间相比我们用其它人造光源照射的时间更短，但是缸里的鹿角珊瑚在几个星期后就变成了棕色，最终褪色白化了。所以即使是在宾夕法尼亚州，光照的强度对这个较浅的水深来说还是太强了。应该指出，当鹿角珊瑚变成棕色的这个阶段，珊瑚看上去很像我看到的海底珊瑚礁那种颜色状态，很少颜色而不是棕色。
But intensity is just part of the equation for optimizing color. The spectrum of the light also plays a significant role. While tanks that are predominantly lighted with blue lights will bring out a lot of color in the corals it will tend to wash out the pinks and light purples in the corals and most yellow corals will turn green under this type of lighting.
As a result in order to see the full spectrum of coloration in corals a full spectrum of light is suggested with it looking blue/white rather than completely blue. This lighting may include UV and infrared, but there was no consensus as to how much this helped in coloration. Pure blue light was suggested to be used at the beginning and end of the day to maximize the colors and to get that “pop” on the corals that many of us like.
但光照强度只是让珊瑚达到好颜色状态的一部分因素，光源的光谱构成也发挥了很重要的作用。虽然主要用蓝色光来照明的礁岩缸能让里面的珊瑚发出很多颜色，但它容易导致粉色和浅紫色珊瑚褪色，黄色珊瑚在这种类型的光照下会变绿。
因此，为了看到珊瑚自身完全的本色建议大家使用全光谱的光源/白蓝色，而不是完全蓝色。这种光源可能包括紫外线和红外线，这些能多大程度帮助珊瑚提色大家还没有达成共识。纯蓝色的光，建议在每天开始和结束的时候使用，最大程度帮助珊瑚显色。
After lighting the next aspect for maximizing coloration was water quality, with stability being the aspect that everyone agreed on. I will discuss what everyone feels are stable water parameters in a more in depth future article, but needless to say, no one felt having things fluctuate wildly in a tank during short periods was good for the corals. Chief among the parameters that should be stable was alkalinity. There is little consensus as to what the optimal alkalinity should be. However there was an interesting relationship between nutrient levels and what people thought the alkalinity levels should be.
说完照明因素，下一个能优化珊瑚颜色的因素就是水质，稳定的水质是大家都同意的方面。我将在以后的文章谈稳定水质的指标，但毋庸置疑，珊瑚缸内水质短期内剧烈变动对珊瑚绝对没有好处。主要水质参数中应该稳定的参数是碱度。但是碱度应该是多少大家好像没有达成很多的共识。然而水质营养水平和人们所认为的碱度水平之间还有一种有趣的关系。
When people kept few fish and hence had low nutrient levels, low to almost zero levels for nitrate and phosphate they preferred lower alkalinity levels of 7.5-9, while if they kept lots of fish and had higher nutrient levels, NO3 at .05 and higher and PO3 at .03 and higher they tended to recommend alkalinity levels of 10-12. However no one recommended that NO3 and PO4 be at 0 as they all have seen that coloration and the health of the corals suffers when no nutrients are present for the corals to consume.
当人们养比较少的鱼的时候，水质的营养水平就比较低，低到几乎为零的硝酸盐和磷酸盐的水平，这时人们偏向低碱度的范围 7.5-9，而如果他们保持很多鱼，高营养水平，NO3 在.05 或更高和 PO3.03 或更高，此时人们倾向于10-12的碱度水平。 然而没有人建议 NO3 和 PO4 降为零，因为没有营养可吸收这会让珊瑚的颜色和健康遭到损害。
