MH Lighting Acclimation

[Johnsteph10]

Hey all!
Well, I've just finished building my hood over Christmas and have gotten the final details finished for my MH system... (moving from CFs to 400 MHx3 on a 120g deep). Right now only inhabitants are 2 open brains and a large colony of zoos that will all be moved to sand at the bases of the LR)...
Now the question (as if you couldn't wait!) --
I've read a number of times about properly acclimating corals to a dramatically increased level of light, but no one has really stated as to the time periods...
I have read in one source to start at one hour and increase by 15 mins. increments. Any comments, suggestions, etc?

 

[Len]

There's no hard rule for it and it is dependant on a bunch of things such as how much light difference there is, what species of corals, where the corals were collected from, etc.

Starting with an hour and increasing it by 15 minutes or 30 minutes a day is fine. The best way is if you can raise the halides in some fashion and slowly lower it down throughout the month, but sometimes this isn't feasible.

 

[ChrisRD]

Another method is to use layers of window screening over the tank. You can cut plastic eggcrate (found in the lighting section of most home improvement stores) to use as a top to lay the screening over. You peel off a layer of screening every few days. I use fiberglass window screening for this as opposed to any sort of metallic screening (saltwater + metal = rust ).

The only drawback to this method is that is will change your evaporation rate. This can be a potential cooling problem if you rely soley on evaporative cooling for temperature control (ie. you don't have a chiller).

HTH