Lightning for lps

[ThisCityIsDead]

Hello, I have a 130g tank. I had many corals about 3 months ago, but something went horribly wrong. I'm not sure what exactly. I had my lights running for 10 hrs a day (8 hrs for actinic, and 2hrs more for the other 2 lights). Lights went on at 8am and were off by 6pm.

The corals that died/bleached were a leader coral (Devils hand, frog spawn, torch coral) I have another frogspawn that's short tentacled, and that turned completely clear. It lost its green color... After 2 months it's finally getting its color back. It made an 80% improvement. After loosing all of those corals I asked my lfs. my lfs said I had the lights running for too long and was causing my corals to die off. So, I made my lighting adjustments. I now have my lights running for about 4-5hrs a day. Some days only one set of lights while others both. On Sunday's I have the lights running for about 7hrs but that's it. So far, I haven't seen any of the corals die off, and one of my hammers is out all the time. It's tentacles are long and it's pink color is more vibrant. Same for the frogspawn (short tentacle) but I noticed one of the heads died off... I've lost a couple of mushrooms too. My scan is doing wonderful, but I also have it placed at the top.

I haven't experienced any algae. Should I be providing more lighting?:/ oh, and for the first 7 months, I had my lights running for 10hrs. My tank just reached 1 year old.

Thanks for any advice provided

 

[Art13]

I have my lights on a total of 12 hours a day and never had an issue, I'm inclined to think it was either too much intensity with the light or something else is off, what size tank, lighting, equipment and parameters would be a good starting to point to help you out.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Do you have multiple threads on this topic? I believe I answered one very similar to this on a different forum here at RC and said if you have T5 lights you probably need to change the bulbs, they are only good at best for 7-9 months

 

[ca1ore]

Most of these corals come from an environment where it's light for 12 hours, so a 10 hour duration is unlikely to be a problem. Agree it's either an intensity problem or old bulbs.

 

[Wesus]

What about your water parameters? Dying corals may have nothing to do with your light

 

[ThisCityIsDead]

What about your water parameters? Dying corals may have nothing to do with your light

For a while, I had great parameters. Ammonia would sneak up here and there, but I would maintenance right away. Plus, ammonia was only at .5. Now, I'm having a bit more of trouble with my parameters. I assume it's because I moved my tank around after everything came tumbling down. For the past month or so, my ammonia has been going up to 1-2 and nitrites hit a spike too.

 

[fishchef]

Any ammonia or nitrite is bad. You mentioned that amm might sneak up a bit. It really shouldn't in a cycled tank.

 

[rt67ghy]

Find out what caused ammonia in your tank so you can remedy that, otherwise you may have corals dying all the time.

 

[Wesus]

For a while, I had great parameters. Ammonia would sneak up here and there, but I would maintenance right away. Plus, ammonia was only at .5. Now, I'm having a bit more of trouble with my parameters. I assume it's because I moved my tank around after everything came tumbling down. For the past month or so, my ammonia has been going up to 1-2 and nitrites hit a spike too.

Ammonia and nitrite should be undetectable. Most likely this is reason why your corals are dying

 

[Dkuhlmann]

wesus, x2

Now to find out what the source of ammonia is. If you moved the tank and stirred up the sandbed I could see a nitrate or phosphate spike but not ammonia or Nitrites.

Something must have died or is dying.

 

[IvanTheTerrible]

Ammonia would sneak up here and there, but I would maintenance right away.

What specific maintenance were you doing to take care of the ammonia?