Did I burn my Cyphastrea?

[Jblakeman]

About 5 - 6 weeks ago I purchased two Radion XR15W for my 75 gallon tank. It's standard size, 4'x18"x18" tank. On the Radions I did a 4 week acclimation starting at 50% working up to 100%. It's been at 100% for a couple weeks now. I have the 120* optics on the Radions. They are mounted with the RMS mounts.

The cyphastrea is on the bottom of the tank. The top of the rock it's on starts about 21" below the lights, the bottom of the rock is about 26" below the light. It's done really well since I've had it. Initially I had it under a 6 bulb T5 set up. Great growth and great polyp extension. So much so on the polyps that you could barely see the green under the polyps.

If I did burn the coral, is it salvageable? What can I do for it? I turned the Radions down to 60% max. Is that enough? Is that the problem?

I only have three sps coral, a red monti I picked up about 2 months ago, this cyphastrea and an acro I picked up today. The monti is on top of the rock work and that's where I planned on putting the acro as well. Other than that I have a handful of frogspawns, hammer corals, acans and quite a few zoas and ricordia mushrooms.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Here are a few pics below.


This is what it looked like a few weeks ago. It was under the Radion at this time but not at 100%.

The edge is starting to recede. Polyp extension isn't great.

The top edge is purple. Polyps are small.

Better pic where it is starting to recede from the edge.

More pics of the purple, the side edge has some and the hump in the middle from the original frag is starting. Looks like the polyps are just melting away.

 

[Shep]

Give it awhile and see what happens, it could just be adjusting.

 

[Robink]

I have the same size tank and the radion pro 30 with the same mount. Only running my lights at 45% on the radiant schedule. You may want to turn them down. I have a mixed reef with two cyphastrea mid tank. Every thing doing well.
I think 100% is too much light. Not an expert, just my opinion.

 

[JMLewis]

Radion at 100% can be super intense. Looks like your burning em to me.

Corals can live at low light for a lot longer than they can live with too much light. (Stole the quote from the BRS guys) So there's no reason not to turn em down and see if the receding stops. With the depth of your tank I would try running them at 45-65% and see how the coral respond.

 

[Wiz]

I find these are super low light sps. I have mine in mid tank and it was shaded by a torch that I moved. Within a week it was faded white all except the edges. I put the torch back which blocks a good amount of light and it came back in about 2 weeks. I run rr 165p+ at 75 blue and 60 white. Ill bet the radions are too much. Mybopinion

 

[Shep]

I find these are super low light sps.

Haha the great debate, are they SPS or LPS, I have always seen them listed as LPS but this could simply be because they thrive under low flow and low light, like LPS do.

 

[Sabellafella]

Deff not from the lights its more of like an alk burn/ going past 1.026 is when mine occurs and yes as of rite now also, the bottom you can tell just came back then now tge top middle started burning

 

[Wiz]

I was unaware it was a debate. Lol makes sense but it my tank it likes less light than my lps. I have torch, trumpet, candycane, elegans, frogspawn..... all like more light than the meteor shower. I was amazed at how fast it faded to white and cracks formed. I shaded it back because it was the shadier areas that retained there color and presto.

Haha the great debate, are they SPS or LPS, I have always seen them listed as LPS but this could simply be because they thrive under low flow and low light, like LPS do.

 

[Wiz]

I have a small patch beside my overflow that is almost dark and it does well

 

[Waters]

As everyone else stated, Radions at 100% is way too intense for most coral. I have two XR30 Pros over a 105g mixed reef with my lights maxing out at 60%. I would turn them way down. Also, white lights will burn a lot easier than the blues.....try running at 18-20K for a while and slowly lower the K if needed.

 

[reefwiser]

Do you have a Par meter available? I would say you burned the cyphastera for sure Radions can run at 100 % but that doesn't mean corals can take it and live. I had to turn my Radion's way down after using a Par meter to see how hot they where in my tank.

 

[Jblakeman]

I turned the lights down to 60% max. I test my parameters pretty regularly so I don't think it's an all burn. I'll double check again tomorrow just to be sure.

I will check w/ my lfs for a par meter, I've always been curious anyway how these and my other tank's lights perform. I'm sure one of the many around have a par meter I can rent for a few hours.

Thanks for all the info. Hopefully I'll post a pic in a few weeks w/ the cyphastrea looking awesome again.

 

[Robink]

I had completely lost this cyphastrea, or so i thought. Left it in the tank and it has almost completely recovered.

 

[Nowell]

I had completely lost this cyphastrea, or so i thought. Left it in the tank and it has almost completely recovered.

The little umbrella helps.

 

[Jblakeman]

Nice. I think it's starting to come back. A little too early to tell for sure but I'm optimistic.

 

[Jblakeman]

Update on the cyphastrea... Looks to be mostly recovered. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Sabellafella]

That PEs crazyy lol ever figured out what happened?

 

[Jblakeman]

Definitely burned them with the XR15's... 60% seems to be a good intensity for my tank. Everything seems happy.

 

[reefwiser]

That great. It is so easy to burn corals. It's good that you found out the problem in time. Some corals recover and so do not.

 

[mannyhernz]

I have the same size tank and the radion pro 30 with the same mount. Only running my lights at 45% on the radiant schedule. You may want to turn them down. I have a mixed reef with two cyphastrea mid tank. Every thing doing well.
I think 100% is too much light. Not an expert, just my opinion.

How deep is your tank? (tall)