Coral Death from Low Light

[JaaxReef]

This is more of question of curiosity than my own experience.

So, I’ve seen plenty of pictures and information about corals dying from too much light, too low of nutrients, or even too high of alk or parameter swings. I haven’t seen a lot of content on what happens to a coral that is dying or died from receiving insufficient lighting. I know that typically they brown out at first, but then what? What symptoms would they show when dying from low light? Does anyone have pictures to share? Think of keeping an acro under one pc bulb. What would happen when they receive light shock from too low of light?

Thanks everyone!

 

[five.five-six]

Basically too low of light will starve the coral to death slowly. You see this when people take too long to change their lamps and then in a corrective mesure change the lamps with new which finishes the job on weakened coral. Nice bright white skeletons all over the tank.

 

[Young@Heart]

I am interested on other comments as well. I have just introduced new corals to my 180 G Peninsula Tank and I have Temporary Lighting in place. Perm lighting will be 2 AP700's, but not for another month. My Temp lights are Corallife T5 (I think) and and LED Bar I borrowed from my LFS. Oh yeah my tank is 29 inches deep.

Thanks.

 

[five.five-six]

It will take more than a month for them to die. You should be fine however I would expect, depending on species, to see some coloration you may not like that may take 3-6 months to fully correct. The one nice thing about LED is that you can bring them up slowly. You should be fine.

 

[JaaxReef]

Basically too low of light will starve the coral to death slowly. You see this when people take too long to change their lamps and then in a corrective mesure change the lamps with new which finishes the job on weakened coral. Nice bright white skeletons all over the tank.

When you say starve to death, do they slowly pale out after turning brown?

 

[JaaxReef]

I’m curious to see what others say! I hope I get some more responses.

 

[Leishman]

I lost a boat load of SPS while in Europe for two weeks in August. My frag tank light died while I was away. The frag system is tied to the display and both tanks share a sump. The display was fine, no losses. The frags that survived looked bleached and are still recovering.

 

[JaaxReef]

So they look bleached, similar to when exposed to too high of light? Interesting!