Big mh mistake corals burned

[reef krazy]

Ok the idiot that I am I added my first sps to my tank and upgraded the pcs to one 70 watt mh over a 8 gallon bc with a home made fixture and no uv glass, well I desided to slow aclimate the coral to the light by only running two hours, 12 inches away from the top, all coral that were exposed to the light got burned and noticed it this morning they will not fully open up and tenticles shribbled now for the ones under the shade fully open and great tentacle extension, what should I spect and is there anything I can do other tha keep on kicking my self in the behind, I'll post some picks tonight.

 

[cdbias2]

Only an HQI bulb needs a uv glass filter.
Corals often respond to a more intense light like that for a while.

 

[reef krazy]

Are all glass uv filters and if not were can i pick some up ace hardware ?

 

[mnml]

Make sure it's tempered glass or else it may shatter if any water splashes on it when the bulb is one.

 

[greenbean36191]

Well for one you need to reduce the intensity of the lighting, not the duration. The damage is done by excess intensity and reducing the duration only changes how long the damage is being done.

Whenever you upgrade lighting or change bulbs you need to either raise the lighting up several inches or put a few layers of window screen over the tank and slowly increase the intensity over the course of a few weeks.

Now that the damage has been done the best thing you can do is fix the intensity issue and make sure there is adequate water flow for all of the damaged corals.

 

[reef krazy]

I have great water flow, now how many inches from the water should I raise the light?

 

[Toddrtrex]

I have great water flow, now how many inches from the water should I raise the light?

Going off what Greenbean said, I think that using window screening is easier and more effective.

Just get some egg create (( to support the screening )) and size it to the rim of your tank, and place a couple of layers of screening ontop of it.

 

[reef krazy]

How many layers and depending on the layers remove one at a time every week? What about height of bulb how many inches from the water, I had it 12 inches away. This is making me feel like a noob, I had a 30g under 2 250 hqis 10 Inches from water and never expirienced this before.