Too much light?

[jelwyoming]

I have a 60g reef tank with 2 - 150w 6500k Iwasaki MH lamps and 265w PC (mixed). I had one blue tip acro that is growing very well under this lighting. I recently added 2 more acros, a blue and a purple tort. Upon arrival, (the overnight took 2 days) they had lost alot of color. After acclamation, I moved the acros high in the tank, about 6" down in the water, 10" under the lamps. Their color rapidly turned to a brown. They have been in the tank now 2 months and show good signs of growth but the color remains brown on all but the new growth which is true to the original color. At nearly 10w/g, is this too much light? Should I just wait and see how they adjust?

 

[jelwyoming]

any one home?

any one home?

any advise out there?

 

[thebicyclecafe]

If you're keeping SPS that lighting is more than adequate. Don't really go by the watts/gallon rule, it's more of the type of lighting, color temperature, and also the depth of your tank. (in your case the really only significant lighting for the acropora is the MH lighting). 6500K is a good color temperature for acropora, you really need to keep them as close to the lights as possible. Those acros need a lot of light to hold their color. Corals generally brown when they are shipped, that is totally normal and that's not because of your lighting. If you know the lighting that the corals came from prior to being in your tank, and it's the same or stronger than yours, you can keep your corals a lot higher than they are. However, make any changed very very slowly so as to give them time to adapt. There is nothing more stressful than moving an organism. No more than once a week is recommended, unless it shows immediate signs of bleaching or something. Shouldn't happen under the 150s though. Good luck!

 

[jelwyoming]

They had been under 400w 10k's. So, the lighting is different. I wonder if I leave them where they are if they will color back up in time. As I said, the new growth seems to be the true color.