Changed bulbs now mushroom is mad

Bam327 · May 4, 2020

I’ve got a 4 month old system and have had a mushroom coral for a few weeks. It was the first coral I purchased and it was doing well. I have a 4x2x2 120 DT with a 6 bulb T5 fixture and an actinic LED strip to supplement. My fixture had stock bulbs that weren’t very good, but my mushroom was doing great under them. I bought two pieces of LPS last week. I knew I wanted to replace the stock bulbs with ATI which I had on hand ready. I figured since I was stepping up in the coral world that it was time to replace the bulbs. After doing so my mushroom retracted and hasn’t opened up on about 5 days now. It’s about as low as it can go in the tank.

pH - 8.2
dKh - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 2 ppm
Phosphate - .05
Calcium - 500
Mag - 1500
SG - 1.025

Lighting schedule
I have my LED come on by itself for 2 hours in the morning and stays on for 2 more hours with 2 Blue + bulbs. My LED turns off at that point and I have all 6 T5 bulbs running for 6 hours. Then I have the 2 Blue + and LED come on for 2 hours and finally the T5’s turn off and just the LED runs by itself for 2 hours before lights out for the night.

Any help is appreciated. I would hate to lose my first coral.

ndrwater · May 4, 2020

This is why it is usually best to replace the bulbs over time instead of all at once.
To our eyes, the bulb is lit and looks the same. To corals, nothing could be further from the truth. Your shroom got used to an underperforming bulb and is now sitting under brand new high performance bulbs with nowhere to go.. I'd be mad too..
I'd decrease the duration of the lighting a few hours for a while and then slowly increase duration over a period of 6 weeks or so.
Don't feel to bad, this is something that is rarely discussed but oftentimes "understood" with seasoned reefers.