Hammer & Frogspawn Corals Not Opening

[mr_X]

Those SOLs can really cook corals. I would not be surprised at all if it turned out being the lights. I know a couple guys that killed a lot of sps before they got them dialed in properly and that was at less than 50%. This was switching from halides and high powered T5 units. My fixtures have no optics. The SOLs have optics to maximize light. Similar to T5HO's with and without reflectors.

[fort384]

The bad news is now my zoas are getting in on the act. It started with 1 colony yesterday, and now late today, another colony has closed up as tight as they can get. I really don't know what else to do.

I was advised to try running some carbon in the off chance that something has gotten into the water, so I started that tonight. I am making water tonight in the event that I need to do another water change, but have been advised both to do a bunch of big water changes, and also not to do any water changes.

LOL I feel as lost as I felt when I first got into planted tanks... but at least the plants I killed when I started out only cost a few dollars. This is shaping up to be a much larger financial disaster.

[Sniperhank]

Actually, carbon sounds like a great idea. It possible to turn your lights down some more?

[AquaRick]

Originally Posted by mr_X

They would not shrink if the light was too low, instead they would expand more to try to create more surface area to absorb light. "MH" lighting could mean anything. As stated above, a couple 150 watt halides over a tank is practically nothing.

Still thinking it's the lights and agree with Doug.

Were you able to call the LFS and see what kind of lights your corals were running under? If they were indeed 150 MHs, then 20% could indeed still be too much.

[fort384]

I called the yesterday. They are 250s over the tank the Lps came out of. PC in the zoa tank.

[uh.oh...]

I don't know if that carbon is going to help atm. If it is the light, then adding carbon, which removes dissolved inorganic materials, is actually just going to make your water clearer, which will increase the amount of light hitting those corals. If you do add it, and you agree that its the light, then you'll need to dim the lights some how.

[uh.oh...]

they might be looking for some higher alkalinity, to go a different way for a minute. 9.8 is what you listed before, which is fine... but I find that with higher efficiency lighting systems corals like to be around 12 dkh. That study posted on Advanced Aquarist last week about the different growing conditions of corals under leds, mh, t5ho, ect... found that under blue leds corals need more flow and oxygenation, something to do with increased uptake of oxygen and increased heat production. I'm not saying put your lps in front of your vortex on 100%, but maybe its partly related to alk.

here's the article: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog...al-aquaculture

[fort384]

Thanks uh oh. I will check out the article tonight. Lowering intensity isn't an issue - I can set it anywhere from 0-100%.

I will report back tonight on how they are looking. I think the hammer is toast though. The tentacles are retracted so much now that you can hardly see them.

[carey]

I've had similar issues with zooas for some reason. I attribute it to too much light. :-( Even if you get them to a proper level these things do still happen. Sorry that youre having these issues. But like mentioned above, see if ypu can get them under less light or shielded a bit. You should have some time before the zooas actually disappear which is what they do in my tank sometimes, they just disappear polyp by polyp. :-(

Good luck, still following to see what the solution may be for your problems, might help solve my own.

[Sniperhank]

After being involved with this thread and finally getting my Radions up and hung over my cycling 55...I realized that I never turned them down! I have them turned down as low as they will go and planning on keeping them there until the switch over and see how things react.

Maybe it is time to try 10%?