Too much light ?

[zibnata]

Is it possible to have too much light ? I had a 55 gallon tank with PC lights and all corals were thriving. I have all LPS corals. I switched over to a 125 gallon and had in total with a bunch of miss matched fixtures 12- 65 watt pc bulbs untill I got a new fixture. the corals were still doing well. I then purchased a Aqualight fixture that has 4- 96 watt actinic and 3- 150 watt HQI. I had 14 k HQI lamps. I didn't acclimate the corals properly because of lack of knowledge. Things started going downhill. Corals seemed to be dying. I then realized it and kept the HQI lamps off for half of the day amd corals started looking beter. A year went by and I replaced all the bulbs. I wanted a brighter look so I replaced the 14 k HQI with 10 K. Corals really went down hill.I went through the acclimation process, only having the HQI's on for a few hours a day. I did that for a couple of months. Most of my polyps died. The large toadstools polyps haven't been out since I put the new fixture in. The mushrooms mostly died. And now the green star polyps wont open up anymore. I have a colt coral that has been about 6 inches for over a year now. Any suggestions ? thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Yes you can have to much light. But from what you posted you do not have to much. Your problem could be something other than the lights. Do you used the glass shield with the HQI bulbs? If not that could be the problem. HQI bulbs need to be shielded because of the UV thet put out.

 

[zibnata]

yes there is glass on the light. I also have glass on the top of the tank.

 

[Anonymous]

So that's not it then. How are the levels, temp, etc.

 

[zibnata]

Temp. is 78. All the readings look good except the ph was at 7.6. With a lot of topping off I never thought of checking the ph. Could that be the problem ? I have a well and my water's ph is way below that. I did a 30 gallon water change last night and added ph buffer.

 

[zibnata]

I fixed the ph. It is now 8.4 . However I just got a Ca test and the Ca is 650. Is that too high ?

 

[Anonymous]

Too much light ?

It's darn near impossible to have too much light. You can have the wrong type of light. You can have the wrong spectrum. You can have too long of photoperiod. You can have heat issues with your lighting, but unless you're overpowering your tank with more light intensity than the sun it's not a lighting issue.
btw years ago I purposely tried over 100w/gl with no ill results.

Regards,
David Mohr

 

[zibnata]

interesting, thanks