Acclimating To MH

[laxzach]

I have just ordered my new 30" 150 watt HQI MH lights. (Thank you to everyone that helped me decide on them). I have heard that there is a special way that you have to do when acclimating corals to MH. What is it? Someone told me that there is a screen that you put over the corals or something. Is this true? So all you people with MH lighting how do you acclimate your corals.

 

[pallan]

well i have 2 peices of the coated metal that is used for closet shelves. these are cut to size to just fit on top of my tank so they are not touching water and can not fall in, one peice for each side . on top of these i add 4 layers of screen. (local hardware store screen for windows or doors) cut to size. once i fired up my halides i placed these between the light and the water and every week i pulled one layer of screen off. once all were off i removed the metal frames and everyone was happy. kept all my pieces for when i do a bulb change so as to slowly acclimate them to the new bulbs as well.
hope you get the point kinda hard to explain by typing if you need them i can take pictures.

 

[myreef05]

Several layers of screen material is placed "between the lights and the water", meaning lay ontop of the tank. Every couple of days remove one layer of screening (allows more light to penetrate the water). I am acclimating my new lights (T5's) and what I am doing is 1/2 strength during the day and about 1 hr. I will full strength them and then decrease after that hour.

 

[aztec reef]

i don't light acclimate my corals but i do acclimate MH lighting if i was to upgrade.. when you get the lights start with 3or 4hrs for the first week and the following week you can start adding an hour every few days. as for the corals i just put new additions close to bottom and eventually move up to a desire spot. :happyfish

 

[laxzach]

I understand what you guys are saying but I dont have any corals right now. I was told that you would need to acclimate the corals to the light after you bought them from the fish store. Is this true? If so did you still use the screen ideas above?

 

[laxzach]

Bump

 

[jhuggins]

good question. It depends on what light they where under at the lps. Either way for the first couple of hours I leave the lights off. If they were under pc at the store then I would start with a few hours a day then increase it. I also put mine low in the tank and then move them high little by little

 

[stanlalee]

I didn't acclimate going from pc to 175watt MH bulbs. all I did was move all the mushroom rocks to the sand. My LPS, zoo/star polyps didn't seem to care. I went from 96w pc bulbs to 175w MH bulbs. Perhaps had I used higher wattage bulbs I might have acclimated more carefully.