Lighting issue, need help.

[randymon]

This might get long but bear with me. About 9 mos. ago I upgraded my 55 gal to a 125. All the corals in the 55 were put in the 125. The corals consisted of a large toadstool, a couple finger leathers, frogspawn, closed brain, shrooms, and zoos. after a couple months I also upgaded the lighting from 220 watts of pcs to 660 watts of vhos on the 125. This started a huge hair algae problem that now 6 mos. later is finally almost all gone. Some of my corals also didnt like the new lighting and I figured they would in time, but they still havent adjusted. The corals that dont like the light of course are the shrooms that are on the bottom of the tank, zoos that wont fully open no matter where I put them, and oddly enough the frogspawn. The Toadstool and finger corals seem to be ok with the new light. Ok so now its time to change my lights out and I love zoos and shrooms and want to find a way to get them to open. Am thinking about going to nos instead of the vhos, and was wondering if this would be ok. The ballasts are 2 Icecap 400 series and the tubes on now are 6 ft vhos. Im not even sure if they mke nos that long. My fears are that this might cause another algae outbreak, and that the corals that do like the light will be adversely affected. Any suggestions or solutions would be appreciated.

 

[trido]

I have frogspawn, zoas and mushrooms in a 120 under 500W MH and 300W VHO and they are all happy. I would look at other possible causes like circulation, filtration, allelotpathy and even water quality. Do you run carbon? Could be the leathers causing havoc (just a wild guess).

 

[Cwazy Clown]

ok you want to dim the light. you can put like layers of plexi. etc. etc. then every moth or so, remove one layer of plexi. this will work but you will need a bit of plexi. you could also raise the vho very very high. (super high) becuae vho's and pc's are a HUGE difference. bcuase you had minimmal pc on it, your corals are in shock from all the lighting.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

no no no trido a light adjustment of like 4watts of pc/g to 6 watts of vho/g is waaaaaaaaay to big. just the light itself will fry your coral. you need to acclimate em to the new light. there are various ways and you will find hits when googling "light acclimation for corals"

 

[Juanfer]

try on placing them under a rock (so the rock work as a umbrella).

 

[LakeEd]

I would agree with Cwazy Clown. It sounds like your corals are just having a very hard time acclimating to your new more intense lighting.

Go to your local Home Deopt or Lowes... and pick up some of their nylon screen door material. This comes in a roll, and varries in width & length. Get enough to allow you to place 3 to 4 layers of this over the very top of your tank, right under your lights. Yes, this will GREATLY dim the lighting in your tank for a while! Run your normal light cycle daily (weather you are running 10 hours a day, or what ever... just don't change that now)... and after about a week, remove 1 layer of that screen material. Your tank will be slightly brighter. Another week later, remove another layer.

You should notice, within a couple days of installing the screening... that your corals return to their original disposition. Give it about a week from then, until you remove that 1st layer.

This is a very easy, cost effective way to acclimate your tank to new brighter lighting.

Keep us informed as to how your tank progresses!!!

 

[Cwazy Clown]

yea . nylon screening would be ALOT cheaper than sheeets of plexi. =)

 

[trido]

no no no trido a light adjustment of like 4watts of pc/g to 6 watts of vho/g is waaaaaaaaay to big. just the light itself will fry your coral. you need to acclimate em to the new light. there are various ways and you will find hits when googling "light acclimation for corals"

Dont you think that they would have adjusted to the light even after SEVEN MONTHS. Ive had corals react badly to lighting but they have always come around after a month or so. I personally think that after seven months they would have either got used to the light, or bleached, or something. I definatey am not a long time reefer, but I do think that seven months is a long time for a coral to be pi$$ed about lighting changes. Especially when its several different kinds. I also think that to quickly jump to the conclusion that it could only be lighting seems real quick to rule out anything else when there was absolutely no information given in regards to circulation filtration and water parameters. May be Im just an Idiot though.

 

[jezzeaepi]

Aye after 7 months I dont think its your light. Id look to testing everything else. Alk/clac/ph/mag/nitrates/amonia/phosphates/TEMP. If youve checked all those, have someone else run tests on them, it could be a bad test kit giving you a false reading. The fact that you had a 6 month algae outbreak indicates that there was a severe excess of nutrients in your system.

Your next most likely culprit would be allelopathy I would think. Try running carbon on your tank. I believe most people replace there carbon every 2 - 4 weeks. If you have a allelopathy problem this may help. Also if you have some other noxious chemical that has somehow made it in to your system, the carbon should take care of that as well.
Also, what kind of flow do you have in the tank?

 

[Cwazy Clown]

well has it been 7 months?

 

[trido]

well has it been 7 months?

That is what it says(indirectly)in the first post.


Randymon wrote:
About 9 mos. ago I upgraded my 55 gal to a 125.
After a couple months I also upgaded the lighting from 220 watts of pcs to 660 watts of vhos on the 125. This started a huge hair algae problem that now 6 mos. later is finally almost all gone.

My first thought was allelopathy. Then I remembered my own mushrooms and GSP. No matter where I put them in my 120 they just werent happy. I have recently set up a 30G softy tank and they have taken off. Water flow is really the only difference that I can think of that would make or break these corals. My watts per gallon are about same. Maybe in my case It was simply too much SPS in the large tank.

Randymon, Can you give us a better detail of your tank regarding the filtration, flow, reactors, amount of LR, etc. and what your water parameters are? With all of this information we should be able to give much better help regarding your angry corals.

 

[LakeEd]

Excuse my post... as it appears this is an ongoing problem??? 9 months old???

Large lighting changes can, and usually will cause what you are talking about Randymon... as well as several other things. Allelopathy (toxins corals have, attacking other corals), higher nitrate levels, flow, maintenance... are all possibilities.

As Trido mentioned in his last post... if you can give us more information about your setup, hopefully we can get you some helpful information. Have you added other corals in this time frame, and how are they responding?

Several people have very high lighting, and successfully have zoos, shrooms, leathers... all types of corals, so I really don't think downgrading to Normal Output lighting is going to be your best option, because you would then be limiting yourself further on what would thrive in your tank.

 

[randymon]

Wow Ive never had so much response to a post before. Ill try and make this short. Yes the new lights have been running for 7 mos. now. Unfortunatley this is a sumpless setup with Big rena canister filter with filter floss and purigen in it cleaned weekly, and a Remora pro with a mag 3 and surface box. The filter floss catches all the dying algae. Flow is from 3 aquaclear powerheads, 2 50s annd a 70 in the middle with one of those rotating jobbys. I just added this weekend a couple maxi jets 900s for more but not to sure if my toadstool likes the xtra flow yet. Also the rena puts out a lot of flow. I have 130 lbs of live rock and oh yea a cpr hob refugium with cheto and seachems de nitrate for subsrate in it. ( with the low flow it works good.) There was a huge nutrient, phosphate and nitrate issue in the initial set up as I was using ro water from my lfs and their ro stroage tank had dead cricketts in the bottom. That has been cleared up with a new ro/di unit and lot of water changes. Calcium, ph, alk, are all good too. The time frame is whats so weird about all this. The zoos and mushrooms have all made it through some rough times and are still alive but just wont fully open. All the other corals that arent as hardy are doing great and have been almost all along. I just dont know for sure its weird. I am going to take some water up to upscales this weekend for a 2nd opinion.

 

[trido]

IMO you need to up your flow in the tank drasticly. With the list of powerheads you have in there (not including skimmer etc., most dont count that) you have a total of 1400GPH turnover in your tank. That is only a 11.2x turnover and the General thought nowdays is a minimum of 30x. I know it may sound crazy because you think the leathers dont like what you have. Are your power heads ointed at the corals and rockwork or do you have them pointed at glass and the surface. Corals dont want a direct blast from the nozzles. BIG, WIDE FLOW is the key. I also have toadstools and finger leathers and they actually werent happy until I put them into a high flow area in my softy tank. My zoas actually started multiplying faster when they were in a higher flow area.
I would recommend getting a couple seio 820s or small tunzes and put them on a wave maker. If your a DIY kind of guy you could do the maxijet mods on your 900s and get GREAT flow. For a wave maker, this is new on the market, http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merc...oduct_Code=JBJ-WM-02&Category_Code=Wavemaking very inexpensive. I dont know anything about it but am considering on for myself.

I think that your skimmer might be a little small for your new tank but for a softy tank I think you will be OK because they tend to like the water a little dirtier anyway.

Also, You still havent mentioned whether or not you use carbon. If you dont, you should consider using a small filter sock with about a cup or so. Possibly in your fuge where alot of water can pass through it.

What do you have in the tank for substrate? Is it barebottom Did you use aragonite or sand? Are your nitrates reading 0?

Regardless of the last group of questions, I think that if you increase the flow and make it more random you will see great improvement very quickly.

 

[LakeEd]

I think Trido has asked a very important question, and that is what are your nitrates reading? Along with that, which brand of test kit are you using with that? Do you happen to have a phosphate test kit, and what are those results also?

I have never made it down to Upscales, but have heard very VERY good things about that store! I would venture they will have some helpful information for you as well! Ask them while you are there about your problem, then let us know if you found any good information.

Just a side comment here: I went from a 75gallon tank, to my current 180. In doing that I went from PC lighting, to MH supplemented with VHO's. After acclimating my corals to the new lighting, my shrooms & Richordia never did open quite as large as they had under the lower lighting, however they really took off spreading like they were much happier healthier animals. Just something else to think about.

 

[randymon]

Thanks everyone for the info and suggestions. Laked I see you live in the town I was born in. Love that town tho I havent been back in years. I will check my nitrates this weekend and decide what Im going to do about more flow. I have been kinda looking at the wave2k. I thought about the seios but they seem to have restarting issues and tunzes are just stupidley priced in my opinion. Thanks again, Randymon.

 

[jezzeaepi]

The seios are the best bang for your buck and most people dont have restarting issues. I have 2 seio 620's and have turned them on and off 100's of times and they are fine. Never once had an issue with one not starting.