Bad Day

[MaliciousRob]

I have a 12 gallon nano with LEDs that has been flawless for the past 4 years. I do weekly water changes of 3 gallons and I use Red Sea coral pro salt. For the first year I always checked my parameters. The were always good because of the salt in my opinion so I stopped checking. Just recently my son was born so I haven't had much time for the tank. Weekly water changes became monthly water changes. No lights have been except the tank is in our bedroom so my wife has had the blue LEDs on at night so we can see when we get up for the baby. Just recently I decided I wanted to get the tank back on track. I did a 50% water change and cleaned everything up and started turning the white lights on. Last night I turned all the lights on at 5pm. Then we went to dinner. We came home and I fell asleep. I woke up at 5 this morning and turned off the lights and went to work. So they were on probably about about 12 hours. Bad, I know. I came home for work today with a couple new acropora frag. I turned the lights on and was about to start acclimating when I realized half of my corals were dead, Mainly the ones that are more light sensitive. Rare chalices, hammers, and others all dead. Zoas colonies are on the verge of melting. Electric Oompa Loompas, bizarros, seductions, blonde b's and closed and looking bad. So my question is, would it be because of the light being on for so long after the corals have only been under blue light 8 hours a day for 3 months? I have a feeling the zoas are closed because of the increased bio load from the Lps melting. Should I be looking for other problems? Nothing has changed in 4 years except the recent unusual light schedule

 

[mike007]

Sure could be. With the added intensity it could have very well shocked them. They should have been acclimated to the whites. Hopefully they will overcome. If you plan on running the whites do it slowly and acclimate them

 

[Reefing Madness]

Yea, I agree, if you left LEDs on there all night without acclimation, then your corals probably burned up. What % are you running them at?

 

[bct15]

It's is more than likel that 50% water change using red sea coral pro salt, which caused a huge alk swing then you didn't see the effects right away. I use red sea coral pro salt but I don't make that big of water changes with it. If reccomend only 1 gallon changes a week,

 

[jcdeng]

I think its light shock. U said most of them that died or are doing bad are chalices, LPS and Z/Ps? those requires low light and if they can survive 8 hrs of blue only for a few months, sunddenly getting whites for 12 hrs will definitely burn them to a crisp. At this point I would think about restarting the tank, do a 100% wc, siphon the sand bed, and maybe raise the light and turn on the whites for a small amount of time per day, increase by 1 hr per week, when it reaches the power % where it was at and your corals are doing fine, lower the light 1-2 inches per week.