[tosiek]

Little history on the lighting, hope it provides some help into the trouble shooting.

I've been running a 250w 15k phoenix bulb for a while now (6+months) and about 3-4 weeks ago i switched to a 12.5k bulb and went with T5 supplimentation. I used to run the 15k about 9 hours or so without any problems and the coral loved it untill the bulbs started to get old and weren't lighting as they used to. I switched over and used 2x window screening to tint out the brand new bulbs and ran that for about 2 weeks to let the coral adjust to the new lighting. 1 week i ran 1 and just mid last week i stopped using anything all together. In the mean time i would lower the light about 2 inches every week. Everythign was adjusting well to the changes. Yesterday i've noticed burning on my SPS where the light hit them and its only SPS on the top half of my tank, certain colored coral didn't get affected in the same area (pretty cool find on my part, sorta ). I also had all my SPS on the sand for the first week and moved them up my rockwork during the past 3 weeks finding their happy places.

I since then moved my coral onto the sand or lower rockwork. It all started about a day or two ago, actually a day after i had my hood running and the light dropped an inch from where it was hanging to where it is in the hood My lights have also been on 10 hours a day because i bumped the timer and it set itself 3 hours ahead and i haven't noticed it turning on earlier since i've been at work.

Now i can't figure out if its the length of time the lights are on, or if the light is just too bright. Or if i stunned them when i added my magnesium one night into my powerhead too quickly.

the lights are about 8 inches from the top of the water. And about 12-17 inches from where the coral thatw ere showing signs of beeing burnt were.

I did tests today on my water params and they were done this weekend.

CA 450
alk 3.5
sal 1.025
mag 1250 (currently bumping it to 1350)
trates/trites 0 as well as ammo.
Po4 barely readable but there. guessing 0.2-4.
Temp fluctuates from 75-78.5.


I haven't had a good reaction with alot of my coral to the new K rating bulbs since i installed them and people really meant it when they said the closer you get to 10k the brighter the light is intensity wise. All my LPS are doing fine though and the SPS were all coloring up nicely over the course of a week which stunned me and all their polyps were out fully extended untill 2 days ago.

sorry for the long read. Hope some of it helps. I've dropped the time lights are on to 5 hours with T5's running a half hour before and after today.

	SPS Small Polyped Scleractinians - Sometimes known as Small Polyped Stony corals. These are hard corals that have extremely small polyps. They are typically on the difficult side and require Metal Halide lighting or dense Power Compact or T5 arrays. These corals are prized for their rareness and ability to be easily fragged into multiple colonies.

	LPS Large Polyped Stony corals – In the aquarium hobby this is a common division of the species of stony corals based upon the visual assessment of the size of the polyps. Corals in this category were among the first stony corals to be kept successfully in captivity and include many very beautiful species. Commonly kept Genera include Euphyllia (hammer/frogspawn coral), Favia (brain coral), Plerogyra (bubble coral), Lobophyllia (meat/tooth coral), and Caulastrea (candycane coral). LPS corals also include the popular solitary non-colonial stony corals such as Fungia (plate coral), Cynarina (button coral), Trachyphyllia (open brain coral), and Herpolitha (tongue coral). Like their SPS counterparts, LPS corals require good water quality, intense lighting of the appropriate spectrum, adequate water movement and regular supplementation of calcium.

[tosiek]

Only other thing i could think of is that now the lights are in an exclosed space thats white and all that light that previously was beeing lost around the tank is beeing, for the most part, bounced back into the tank.

[cali_reef]

What do you mean the SPS is burning? Can you take a picture of the coral that are affected?

	SPS Small Polyped Scleractinians - Sometimes known as Small Polyped Stony corals. These are hard corals that have extremely small polyps. They are typically on the difficult side and require Metal Halide lighting or dense Power Compact or T5 arrays. These corals are prized for their rareness and ability to be easily fragged into multiple colonies.

[marki24]

Tony, do you mean bleaching?

[tosiek]

I can't get a picture. Its like bleaching but the skin thins around the tips and turns white and the polyps won't open up.

Bleached coral usually turn white and still have polyp extension right?

[tosiek]

I feel like a newbie now. sigh.

Could it be too long of a light cycle or too bright?

[House of Laughter]

Tony,

How old were the Pheonix 14k's? and were they "on thier last leg" when you installed the 12.5k's? What brand of 12.5 K's did you use?

Whenever adding new bulbs you should reduce the light cycle a little as the blubs burn higer in par value the first 30 days then drop off about 30%.

House

[House of Laughter]

tony - are these bulbs shielded somehow?

[tosiek]

whatcha mean? glass over them? yes. They are in a lumenarc reflector.

[prattreef]

Make sure the glass is in correctly. I had a very small gap at one end and fried a bunch of stuff.