Brown mushrooms, too much light?

[Navyblue]

I have a question that some what confuses me.

I've always assumed that brown corals are the result of insufficient light, the have to boost their zooxanthellae concentration and reduce their pigmentation to allow more light to reach the zooxanthellae so that they can obtain enough energy. My experience with a leather coral I have supported the theory above.

But lately I have been seeing comments that brown mushrooms could be a result of too intense lighting or full spectrum lighting.

So what is the general consensus like?

 

[IPowderBlueTang]

I have mushrooms in 2@175 watt MH 15K and the colours look good green, blues. But I have another tank for frags and shrooms in 200 watts of NO 5500K and everything is all brown, but everything grows like cazy in the lighting compare to my MH!

 

[Navyblue]

Interesting, any theory on why does MH causes slower growth? Or were there other factors as well?

 

[chris melb]

Spectrum is different IPowderBlueTang mentions he is using 15,000K MH but in 5,500K NO lighting they grow better. It would seem that the browning maybe from the spectrum change and the fact that they appear to be growing, could it be that they are inflating to recieve more light as the intensity of NO light isnt as strong as MH, thus giving the impression they are growing. Mine are under NO lights and are very brown, and spread out alot. When i change to T5 HO ill post some pics to see the difference

 

[Navyblue]

IPowderBlueTang,

When you said everything grow like crazy do you mean that your other non mushroom corals are growing too?