Coral bleaching question

[fredflinstone]

Hi,

I changed from Nova extreme 4 bulb to 6 bulb system with Tek 6 bulb wiht ATI bulbs. The lights are bighter than usual becuae of the ATI, but my corals are suffering.

My mushroom is slowly becoming all black at places and my montopora which grows liek crazy is also breaching slowly.
Can someone advice me as to what I should be doing here? Should I reduce the amount of exposure? Should I lower the amount of time the lights are turned on? Should I use only 4 of them for now and then start using 6 bulbs in a month? I have a 6000K and a 14000K bulb in there, should I reduce the amount these two bulbs are on for now?

Please help.

[Toddrtrex]

IMO, the best route for acclimating corals and whatnot to new lights is by screening them.

Meaning, getting some window screening (( black, fiberglass )), I usually start with 3 layers and remove a layer each week. Can place some egg create along the rim of the tank to place the screening on top of.

The way I look at it is this; If I hadn't seen the sun all winter, and go outside I can managed to get sunburnt in an hour, (( shortening the photo-period )) but if I put sun screen on I will be fine, and slowly get used to the sun (( like window screening )).

[fredflinstone]

ok the light has been there for the past couple of weeks and the bleaching is happening only now.
Is it too late for this phase or can I still start with this process? Is there another way? CAn I reduce the amount of time the lights are on?

[llebcire]

I'm struggling with this as well - went from PC to T5's and lost color in my green caps along with many of my zoas (aptasia's fine...thanks for asking!).

Corals looked awesome for about 2 weeks, then started to bleach. I let it go assuming they would snap out of it, but the green caps remain pale (grow like crazy!). Shrooms are also lighter and have gone looking or shade. All zoas are smaller and shorter now, indication of enough/too much light.

Growth on everything is great - color is not.

After 2 months, I'm now trying to re-acclimate - shortened photoperiod and am only running half power - 1 actinic & 1 10k. It's only been 5 days so a little too early to tell.

-Eric

[fredflinstone]

Probably I will try to do the same. I will increse the distance of the light to water.

[fredflinstone]

anyone else has any experience on this?

[Peter Eichler]

You guys should cut back your photoperiods to 5-6 hours a day and screening might not be a bad idea. You can work your way up to 8-9 hours total photperiod over the course of a month or so, but I wouldn't go longer than that. Also, what ATI bulbs are you using?

One last thing to keep in mind, certain corals will always struggle with the amount of light and the way it's delivered by T5's. Some mushrooms, certain zoanthids, and favid type LPS seem to be the worst hit. Montis as you've found out can also be an issue, but IME most will adapt.

[fredflinstone]

I am only running my lights for 4 hours a day. Thats how much I have always been running them for.