coral closed during the day and open at night

[donfishy]

I have a nice Sinularia finger leather coral. I cut it myself several months ago and now, under new lighting, it has drastically changed color and only opens up nicely when the lights are off. Under my t5's it is a brilliant green and flows nicely, no problems being open all the time. But the frag I cut awhile back, I moved to a different tank under LEDs' The coral has been growing slowly but changed color to bright yellow. It also only opens up at nighttime. When the lights first come on for the day, it looks awesome! But about a half hour later, it is all closed up for most of the daytime. Still yellow, but people have even mistaken it for an Acro because it looks all lumpy and hard. thoughts?

 

[ritter6788]

Possibly still adjusting to your new lights.

 

[donfishy]

it has been like 6 months, ... likely not adjusting still

 

[ritter6788]

Gotcha...I read "under new lighting" and assumed you changed the lighting on it recently. If it's getting lighter in color and not opening in your lights it may just be too bright for it. Have you tried a lower light area or shading it a bit to see if it stays open more? I've seen them easily adapt to high light though.

 

[shred5]

Gotcha...I read "under new lighting" and assumed you changed the lighting on it recently. If it's getting lighter in color and not opening in your lights it may just be too bright for it. Have you tried a lower light area or shading it a bit to see if it stays open more? I've seen them easily adapt to high light though.

I have to agree, there are several reason corals expand and one is to catch more light they also contract to do the opposite. Lighter color also indicated less zooxanthellae which can indicate higher lighting.

 

[donfishy]

well yes, I know it is higher lighting, as it is now getting bombarded with LED light, much brighter than the t5's it was under before, these are non-controllable, so I will have to find a way to diminish the settings a bit