Hello to all

[jberd]

Just wanted to say hello to all and I am happy to have found your site. I have been apart of The reef tank for quite a while now and was referred to sanjay's site from there because of a problem I am having with lighting. So let me just give a little backround and see what you all think could be the problem.

It started a few days ago with a bulb change out. I have a 37 tall with one 150 watt hqi and 2 39 watt t-5's. The bulbs were 2 460nm t-5s and one 10k xm 150 watt hqi. Now the only bulb I have changed is the hqi which I purchased a 13k aqualine bushke. This bulb has been replaced every 7-8 months. It is ran off a magnetic ballast and I have never had any problems up till now. This tank has been up and running for about 3 years with all of the same corals and fish. So I changed the hqi like normal and the next couple of days I notice that the corals start to turn white and peel. But My tank has a brace in the center and the corals under the brace are fine. Do not have any idea what the h___ went wrong. Is this new bulb that much more intense than the xm? What can I do. My pocilipora is done it is completeley a white skelaton. I reduced the time period in half. I am so sick to my stomach I can hardly breath. Please any suggestions.:bablefish

 

[Vir]

welcome to mr

 

[NYreefNoob]

welcome to MR and could be that corals got higher up from growth and causing the burnt tips , also have you added anything new ? got kids ? did you test water params ?

 

[Pedro Nuno Ferreira]

Just wanted to say hello to all and I am happy to have found your site. I have been apart of The reef tank for quite a while now and was referred to sanjay's site from there because of a problem I am having with lighting. So let me just give a little backround and see what you all think could be the problem.

It started a few days ago with a bulb change out. I have a 37 tall with one 150 watt hqi and 2 39 watt t-5's. The bulbs were 2 460nm t-5s and one 10k xm 150 watt hqi. Now the only bulb I have changed is the hqi which I purchased a 13k aqualine bushke. This bulb has been replaced every 7-8 months. It is ran off a magnetic ballast and I have never had any problems up till now. This tank has been up and running for about 3 years with all of the same corals and fish. So I changed the hqi like normal and the next couple of days I notice that the corals start to turn white and peel. But My tank has a brace in the center and the corals under the brace are fine. Do not have any idea what the h___ went wrong. Is this new bulb that much more intense than the xm? What can I do. My pocilipora is done it is completeley a white skelaton. I reduced the time period in half. I am so sick to my stomach I can hardly breath. Please any suggestions.:bablefish

Hi jberd and welcome to MR

Well form your description the corals could not adapt to the new HQI intensity . It is recommended that when one changes light bulbs one reduces the number of hours their on and progressively over the period of a fortnight or a month one progressively increases the number of hours on until the previous total of hours on is reached, or one simply uses sheets of netting material, 5, 6, or more, depending on the mesh size, that are removed one by one every two or three days so that light intensity is filtered and progressively increased over the time and the coral has enough time to adapt it self to the light. Also UV Stop lamps should be used or the UV could burn the corals. From your description the brace in the center acted as a filter and protected the corals. Another possibility for UV filtering is the use of 4mm tempered glass cover for the HQI.

Cheers
Pedro Nuno ;-)

 

[Tangs Rule]

Welcome to MR

 

[Josh]

Welcome to MR!

Any other changes to your tank recently? It seems odd that corals would die that quickly after a bulb change.

 

[Treef]

Welcome to MR, it seems like the lighting was too intense, corals can bleach pretty quickly if they are not acclimated to new lighting. When i switched to mh's I lowered the lights over the course of a month and some corals still bleached, and quickly. Also I believe that different ballast can fire different bulbs with varying intensity, some bulbs will burn brighter under certain ballast and others not as bright. Also check the uv glass shielding the bulb for any problems, unfiltered light from hqi can really damage corals.

 

[KathyC]

Welcome to MR, good that you found us and hopefully Sanjay will be dropping by to add his expertize.

Aside from what other folks have said already suggested...if we assume that you do have a UV shield protecting the bulbs, was there a lot of salt spray on it and perhaps you cleaned it very well when you put in your new bulb?
That coupled with a new bulb could certainly dramatically increase the intensity of light reaching the corals.
Time to :bunny: and get yourself some fiberglass screening !
Sorry about the corals you have already lost