Importance of photo-acclimation

[reefrunner69]

Almost 3 weeks ago, I received 2 new MH bulbs from one of our sponsors, I had previously been using a Ushio 10K, but was not real pleased with the decrease in spectrum over the course of the year I ran it. It started out very white/blue and by the end of the year was pretty darn yellow. I was changing brands, from Ushio to CoralVue, I wasn't sure what spectrum I wanted to get so I got a 10K and a 20K, the sponsor was out of 10Ks so they sent me a 12K and a 20K and promised to ship the 10K when it was in, I could send the one (or two) I didn't want back. I got the bulbs and added the 20K bulb to the system, I was off the next day and had every intention of finding the extra set of pegs to my timer (good reson for digital timers), the new bulb ran for a couple hours the first night, the next day I received a call from the school at 8:15am telling me my son had probably broken his arm, we went and got him and spent the next couple of days in the hospital (not only did he break it, he broke it pretty bad, had to put it back together in the OR), needless to say, my reeftank was the last thing on my mind. In total the reef got 1 full (9.5 hrs) photoperiod and about 6 hours of the next day before I was able to get the pegs for the timer and set up a reduced schedule. That was all it took. I am currently using the 10K and have had to further slow the acclimation due to all the increased UV of the new bulb. I looked at the spectral analysis of the CoralVue 10K bulb and it is actually an 11K and has quite a bit of UV in it. At any rate here are a couple of pics to show you why even if your simply increasing the spectrum of the bulb (less intense) you should still adhere to a good photo-acclimation.

Before

After

I don't have a before of this one, but the damage is obvious.

There are two other zo colonies that are effected and my star polyps aren't happy (that really isn't such a bad thing). From the after zo pic above you can see it is the polyps in direct light that are effected the most/worste, the ones on the left are in indirect light and have pretty much kept their color. The bleaching areas on the Pocillipora are all in direct light.

 

[WarOrks15]

omg that really sucks. were there more that look like that? your tanks look so nice.

 

[Biggen]

Wow. I had no idea that kind of damage could occur from simply changing out the lights. The zoo's should come back, right?

 

[reefrunner69]

were there more that look like that?

A couple of zoanthid colonies are not happy, but the one pictured above is the worst of the lot. My green cap burned slightly and I fragged it, it seems to be recovering. There are many things in my tank that have really taken to the new UV, the tips of my blue tip acro have gotten very intense blue, my purple monti's white growth tips have taken a purple tinge to them, the previously purple monti (now brown) seems (might be my wishful thinking imagination) to have a purple tinge to it's skeleton. I have notice a slight spurt in growth ina few of my corals. The new tort really seems to like it as well.

 

[stresco]

Wow!!! Sorry to see that happen. I got some great advice from members here when i changed my lights. I went from PCs and NO lighting to 350Watts of MH, 20k CoralVeu, and on the advice of people here, i bought a roll of window screen and cut some sheets to cover the tank. I removed one sheet every few weeks till i got them all off. I did suffer one loss, but im not sure if it was the lights that did it.

 

[reefrunner69]

The zoo's should come back, right?

Most are already looking better as far as opening, I am keeping fingers crossed on the colors. One set of zo's has gotten a very interesting aqua color going on where they were previously lavander and orange, not sure which I liked better, but hoping for a full recovery of all the involved corals.

on the advice of people here, i bought a roll of window screen and cut some sheets to cover the tank. I removed one sheet every few weeks till i got them all off.

Excellent advice, but my system doesn't allow for that, I follow a reduced photo period acclimation and it usually works fine, I was going to reduce the photoperiod the day they got fried, but more pressing matters came up. I was literally at the hospital 13 hours the first day and most of the day the next. The lights of my tank were not on when I left and off when I returned home, when I returned home on the second day the first thing I did was to turn the light off, too late though.

 

[stresco]

Sorry to read about your boy...how is he doing? I didnt see it the first time i looked, i have a bad habbit of skimming through information, and not reading it.

 

[cmor1701d]

I'm assuming your son is on the road to recovery if you're back here posting. That's good news.

Sorry to see the photo's though. Thanks for the warning. I'll be sure to to use the 'screen' method when I upgrade my lighting in preparation for going reef.