Too much light on my reef?

[OscarFan76]

Have a 40 gallon breeder with the following coral stock:

3 small orange montipora frags.
Small piece of Frogspawn with two heads.
Galaxea Coral about palm sized.
Several mushrooms of various types.
A frag of red/yellow zoas with about 20 heads.
A Kenya tree.
A few button polyps.
Small clam anchored in the same rock with the Kenya tree, some shrooms, and a couple of button polyps.

My lighting is a 24 inch fixture with a 250 watt metal halide (14000k bulb) and two 24 watt/22 inch bulbs (antic 420 & 10000k bulbs). It also has 4 blue LEDs that I assume are for twilight.

The light is about 8-9 inches above the tank and around 10 inches above the water.

Is this too much light? I run the lights about 10-11 hours. Should I run the Mh less hours during the day? I've notice my shrooms are looking better after moving them out from directly under the light.

A few of my purple rocks have bleached out so I thought I would get input on lighting.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Sniperhank]

It has been an assumption that coraline doesn't like tons of light...my only reason to believe this is that I have a FOWLR system covered in coraline and a reef under LEDs with none...

But, it just sounds to me like the coraline died from too much light. What was the lighting before you upgraded? Not truly wanting to say that MH won't produce coraline, just sounds like you upgraded pretty drastically for it all to go away and shroom improvement when being moved into the shade, but have no problems with your SPS corals. I'm actually surprised that the kenya tree didn't show similar effects as the shrooms.

 

[OscarFan76]

This has been the only light on this tank (2-3 month old tank). The purple coraline is purchased live rocks and a couple from my 55 folwr setup with regular t8 lights.

That explains why my tree has looked a little stumpy lately. It was already on the substrate but I can move it out of direct light.

The coral are fairly new (few weeks). I want to keep them healthy.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Sniperhank]

How new? The one is def dead...were they in the sandbed when first placed in the tank? They might have been burned or just not used to such strong light. My lfs basically runs PC lighting...i dont get coral from them anymore, but it was a struggle to get them adjusted to my 4 t5ho bulbs without dying.

 

[OscarFan76]

I think I've had some for a couple months (mushrooms), galaxea/button polyps/zoas/other shrooms for 3 weeks, and the montipora/frogspawn/more shrooms/pulsing Xenia/kenya tree for 2 weeks.

The original shrooms are doing great. Most stuff is really. The tree just looks a little deflated.

All of my coral came from people instead of a lfs. The latest additions came from a 55g with a 4 bulb t5ho fixture. The ones before that a 150 with metal halides and t5s.

Should I only tun the halide half the day and just my t5s for a few more hours?

 

[OscarFan76]

On the substrate meaning on a rock at the lowest point in the tank.

 

[Sniperhank]

That's how i would set it up. Have the t5s come on, followed by the mh at peak hours, then off eoth only t5s again until lights out.

 

[OscarFan76]

Cool. Thanks for the advice.