corals wont open
 

Its been 6 days now after replacing the 14k bulb on my mh and corals still wont open back up. My old bulb was overdue for replacement and my new bulb is a 14k just like the old but more blue. Parameters all good.

changing bulbs can shock the corals. bulbs tend to lose PAR over time. putting a brand new bulb in suddenly increases intensity.
many folks use some sort of acclimation to protect the corals. my favorite is the window screen method:
use 3 or 4 window screens in between the bulb and the water and remove one every week or so until they are gone.

Or reduce your duration by a few hours and slowly add an hour a week until you get back to normal.

but...look at the sun for 30 minutes, or 8 hours....your still blind. i don't believe reducing the photo period is effective. i have no data to back that up though...just my opinion.

Do you think i should add screens now or just let it ride out? I wont really be able to till saturday as im out of town someone is looking after the tank for me but only for basic maintenance

My corals also used to upen up a bit just from when the actinic bulb turns on but they dont even do that now

can you raise the fixture up off of the tank a little? that would also work. at this point, i'd probably try to raise the fixture and hope for the best.

Fixture cant be raised its a pendant that clips on to back of the tank anything else i can do? Should i be worried about my corals dying?

well, i can only tell you about the experience i had when i zapped the tank with new lamps.
the corals seemed unaffected for about a week, then all of the sudden they started failing. the zoas melted away, the sps bleached out a bit, and the lps shriveled up and looked terrible.
i don't think i lost anything really. i had some large zoa colonies that were about a quarter of the size when it was all over, but they bounced back with a vengeance. everything else colored back up in the next couple months.

Ok thanks for the help ill see what i can do to lessen the intensity if there still in rough shape when im back on saturday