What to Do

[kwalls]

I recently upgraded to T-5's and ever since my corals continue to look bad the tank just seems to look worse and I have had a green algae outbreak. Should I put my PC back on the tank and take care of these problems or what? Any suggestions would be great. Thanks

 

[JR's Reef]

You might have light shocked everything. I would cut way back on the time the lights are on and go back up on the time shortly like 15mins every 3 days.

 

[BLEEDSALT]

I agree, It's like getting corals that aren't use to an intense light set-up need to be started lower in the tank and moved to the desired location. Have all the corals been affected by the new light or just some?
Chris

 

[kwalls]

Not all have been affected mostly the ones at the top and I figured it was because of the light intensity but is this also a contributor with the algae problem as well. I have two tanks in the house and I use tap water for both and the other looks great but this one is just booming with algae now. Thanks

 

[tommy patton]

I think the idea above should work, cut all the way back to 4 hours a day and slowly get back up to 6 or 7 hours a day. A light difference from pc to t5 is significant and with stronger lights you may have to look into getting a ro unit to help with the algae. Hope you like the light sorry if it has contributed to any problems.

 

[BLEEDSALT]

Maybe a dumb question, but does your tank face a window where light can come in? I have seen a lot of tanks get algae blooms this way.
Chris

 

[kwalls]

Tank has very little light that shines on it and I will cut back on the light to see if it helps for a few weeks and no worries Tommy the light is great I just didn't acclimate everything well I will get it fixed still learning you know.

 

[atlantisaquari]

not very much data to consider. but a few ideas....... old light bulbs. overfeeding or lack of proper water changes leading to high nitrates / phosphates or just high levels of dissovled organic content.. also the tap water isnt so bad when you talking about a low light tank that evaporates so very little. but on a regular reef tank with med to high light it is deffinatley something you want to avoid. also some tap water may contain higher levels of copper , silica and other undesirables.

but anyway. yep its probably just corals not used to the higher light.

another thing to consider is when going from low to high light, you generaly will be feeding less as the lights will be growing a lot more food( algae, microcrustaceans)