New lighting= closed corals?

[redhot13]

I have recently upgraded my lighting on my 10 gal nano from 40 watt 50/50 coralife bulbs to the coralife PC 96 watt hood. Since the change most of my corals havent looked the same. It has been 3 days since the new lights are up, how long till everything is back to normal?

 

10 gal AGA

11 lbs LR

LS

Trumpet coral

Red mushrooms

blue mushrooms

ricordia

frogspawn

zoanthids

hammer coral

bubble coral

emerald crab

peppermint shrimp

[Reefer_Buddha]

corals need time to acclimate to the new lighting. Imagine living in alaska where's its 70 degrees then moving to arizona the next day, hard to adjust to 105 temps

[Aiptasia]

You are correct in assuming your corals need a period of adjustment under the new stronger lights. I'd do this by moving all of your corals down to the substrate and reduce your photoperiod to about six hours initially.

 

The problem is that since the tank has been running for three days already, you've probably light shocked your corals a bit. Adding a little lugol's solution or iodide suppliment can help them recover a bit, but you might see them expelling some zooxanthellae in long streams of mucous from their mouth pores to re-adjust their beneficial algaes in response to the new lights.

 

You can gradually "up" the photo period every week an extra hour, and this will give them a chance to adjust. If it's a double bulbed hood with separate on/off switches, you can run them on one bulb for the regular photoperiod then turn on the other bulb for an hour each day per week, and gradually bring them up that way.

 

If the light shock was too much stress, you might lose a few corals. Watch for signs of wasting away or bleaching. Usually, hermit crabs will begin to pick at sick corals if they're bad off with a lot of tissue necrosis.

[pyrrhus]

i had 51 watts of light on my 10 gal before i switched to a 96w pc the best suggestion i have recieved so far is to try several pieces of wax paper between the tank and the light and to remove a sheet every couple of weeks. i havent had the opportunity to try it yet but it makes sense to me. BTW this advice came from the store of Micheal p. Janes who recently published an article on the microanatomy of soft corals in Marine aquarium and reef 2004