Lighting crashed my tank

Roger W

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 9, 2019
Messages
6
Reaction score
4
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hi
I have had 3 reef aquariums and recently bought a Red Sea 170.
I transferred live rock plus 4 fish and 20 plus LPS corals some large trachies gold hammers, large red cats eye and a few acans. Also transferred the AI HD light.
All was good.
As I never had a sump before I got the owner of my LFS to come out and talk me through the operation. While he was there he changed the light settings from blues 50% to 80% . As it was a larger tank and he was very experienced I thought it was ok.
After a few days all the LPS corals started to shut up and not eat some more than others. I did not know what was wrong all my water parameters were in the correct ranges so I was really worried.
The hammers were worst and started to die first then dead patches on the trachies. I then realised you fool the light settings.
I had been searching for weeks on the web for ideas BRS was the only site that I found that mentioned in any way lighting.
The dead patches appeared on trachies and I pulled them all out.
The moral of the story lights are dangerous, use them carefully and change them slowly and for LPS 50% blues and no more
I have put a new hammer in and it did not like it so I have taken it out and I am doing a rebuild of my tanks and taking out all the rocks and cleaning them for any dead LPS flesh and then will start again.

For the experts in lighting can we please have some meaningful insights , so fellow reefers don’t have to go through this. Also no need to mention brown jelly, rapid/ slow tissue necrosis etc checked all and negative.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Roger

as your lfs is getting you some reimbursement corals make them read this whole thread especially post no 1


in 100% of successful tank transfers logged forty pages, re ramping lights saves each tank, that and cloudless transfer.




decreasing light levels is so important it’s among the first steps listed. BRS needs to read it too, they have a post on removing sand where it went bad in their tank (yet forty pages above no bad) and guess which crucial part they skipped...

removing or changing sand is the same as relocating a tank is the same as combining a tank, or fixing cyano, or reversing old age syndrome. hundreds of jobs and the moves are the same.

in the 40 pages logged two controls stand out: cloudlessness in the new system, and dropping lights vs increasing them.
 
Last edited:

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
also, honest human mistake by the lfs. If even BRS didn’t know ramping requirements that leaves you with only web nerds and work threads as a resource. Totally understandable mistake they made. The steps above will work any reef tank without loss.
 
Last edited:

reefiniteasy

Check me out on IG!
View Badges
Joined
Jun 6, 2018
Messages
2,342
Reaction score
5,317
Location
Orlando, FL
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Am I understanding that you transferred various corals and fish from a couple of your tanks to the new one and that a change in the color of the light killed them all?
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I do buy it, as we contrast to five years and not one loss above, that is the major procedural difference.
*although white is what we concerned over, not the blue



clouding and upwell is the other risk, did you move over old sand here or new

with no fish loss stated I’m less inclined to think the sand was bad when moved. Ammonia events kill the fish and lighting bleaches corals. Tap water rinsing or replacing the sand before installation solves 100% of ammonia issues we show and light dropping handles all bleaching. Easy.

here is a tank transfer where old sand was moved without the ultra critical rinse in tap water for an hour, see fish wipeout contrasted to sand rinse outcomes using dual protection approach:
 
Last edited:

Nick Steele

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 28, 2019
Messages
2,465
Reaction score
2,501
Location
Port St. Lucie
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I agree with everyone here it was an unfortunate misstep that you didn’t decrease your lights and was hurting the corals.

Acclimation is key to lighting and to say 50% blues is all you can use for lps is just not right. My Nuvo 20 has two ai 16hds and one has blues at 88 percent and one is at 113 percent. Most lps are under the one at 88 percent but I do have a trachy under the 113 percent section. Everything is doing great and not dying.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,494
Reaction score
23,574
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Was that change instated just after a full tank move and increased up from a prior set point

tank transfers tend to lower the organic loading heavily and quickly vs prior condition we think that is the key detail, going from dirty to clean very quickly.

its always hard to trace causatives in reefing but we are able to protect all tank moves doing opposite of the above steps so just off those % logged it seems plausible to narrow down causes to one or two factors here. Any more than two controls and we’d have lost tanks above as statistical outliers. But there are none
 
Last edited:

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

  • Ball valves.

    Votes: 66 51.6%
  • Gate valves.

    Votes: 67 52.3%
  • Check valves.

    Votes: 32 25.0%
  • None.

    Votes: 29 22.7%
  • Other.

    Votes: 9 7.0%
Back
Top