a guess would tell me you should be averaging across the top of the tank water line, about 46 to 50,000 lux. the whites being brighter. the whites you have if the appear kinda blue are likely 20k ish if the are whiteer then 8k to 14k. as you have mostly white, the coral, pigments wont fluoresce as much. ie under 56k sun light a coral is mostly brown. so i could be a little trick of light. plus SPS need time. esp in a new or moved tank.
2 reasons to take top of tank readings.
@ 50,000 lux you should have 1000 par apppox. Thats a LOT of Light and Par
divide the lux by an average lamp rating. 50 is a average. sun 54, best t5 45, crap led 68
so if you went from ebay odyssea t5 (60?) it would be 800 par. even using rough numbers, going to ATI bulbs, right there is a 200 par jump even though the lux may be the same even it were only a 100 par jump thats a lot.
thus the top of tank reading importance. (averaging)
lux at the coral imo is ok but light always going to fall of a mathematical rate. (close to light far from light.) it only changes slightly from light fixture to light fixture. so top middle bottom or quarters, is good to know.
par does not fall of evenly. thus importance of par mapping.
2nd reason to know top o tank readings is thats how you track your t5 burn time. shoud be initial up spike(month or 2) then drop spike(month three to four) then long steady burn and then slow drop starting at 1 year. assuming quality bulb and fixture and excess heat.you will also see the lux drop in the individual bulbs if you write it down.
So IMO small water parameter instability and the move could be one thing then a jump in par and lighting parameters could be next as to what the corals are acclimating to. the aminos will feed every body in the tank including bacteria so nothing lost there.
Fwiw I went from a 150w Radion 2ok to a phoneix 14k MH in my tank.(similar Par/lux levels). A monti that has always been rusty red brown under a year of JBJ LED then 4 Months under a 2ok radion changed color from rust to a bright seafoam green under the 14k.
This change took 40 days
and growth has been amazing.
something to remember is all coral animals have thier own needs and take thier own sweet time to adjust. double check the species and make surer the are not deeper water corals, sps grow every where in inluding the deep dark.
yup I have one tri color valeda that is still brown, except where it is shaded, and glows blue green w purp.
