Powerful Maxspect LEDs killing my coral

[thesustainableaquarium]

Hello,

I'm very new to reef keeping - having my tank up and running for 2.5 months. I recently purchased a scoly and my first hammer coral, and both are looking quite bad! The skeleton on both is showing, and one head on the hammer seems to be losing all of its tentacles. Since I'm new, I unfortunately can't post links to the pictures.

I tested all of my parameters last night -

Nitrites and Ammonia - 0
Nitrates - .2
PO4 - 0
Ca - 430
Mg - 1350
Temp 78
Sal - 1.023
Alk - 9.6 dk

Everything looks good, so it makes me think that my LEDs are too bright. I have the 27 inch 16k maxpects at 75% for each channel at peak. But my tank is the 30 gal long from Innovative Marine, so it's quite shallow. Could this be the cause? Are they a lost cause? What is an appropriate lighting level for my setup? Any help would be great.

 

[bkstang]

Did you acclimate the hammer to your lights? Did the hammer was OK when you purchased it? I would start with channel A not more than 20% and B not more than 40% and increase the power by about 3-5% every 5-7 days. I run the same lights on my 29g tank(18" high) and my LPS are great!. How tall is you tank and how high above the tank you have your lights?

 

[Waleedwale1]

How high is the light above the tank? Lower your intensities for a bit. Both the Scoly and the Hammer are LPS (large polyp stony) coral and don't really much light. In fact I've had my scoly in a cave and it's doing great for 4 months now and my LEDs are much weaker than yours. Put them both in a shaded area or lower your lighting and let them recover, make sure they have good flow though especially the hammer, so that any dead tissue can be blown off, clean them off with a turkey baster to make sure that they clean before moving them or turning down your LEDs.

 

[SI REEF]

I have a 30 g frag tank 12"h. My maxspect is a 20k
I have the 1 st channel @ 10% w. 25% b
2nd @20. 40
3rd. 25. 75
4. 20. 40
5. 10. 25
Total lighting period 10 hrs. Mostly lps on bottom.
so I would say you are bleaching the coral

 

[thesustainableaquarium]

Hi @Si Reef,

Thank you for the direction. I've set my lights to slightly lower levels and will see how that goes. Much appreciated!

 

[Reef Lobster]

It has been discussed elsewhere but be careful of applying too much blue when you tune the dimmers. Corals are prone to discoloring or even death from absorbing too much light in the blue spectrum. With that said, I keep my LPS especially Scolys on the bottom of my tank. DONOT put them on live rock high up they will die or bleach.

On top of lighting, make sure to give the scoly a bunch of meaty diet foods such as phyto and oyster feast I even like fish eggs.

It may be too late for these corals but please do try to revive them before you purchase more. The scolys especially arent fragged or aquacultured, they are taken directly from the ocean for our enjoyment so they are not as abundant as hobbyist would like to assume.


Dont let this turn you away from scolys and LPS though. My scolys love leds and meaty food, jut go slow as always!