coral acclimating to lighting question

[lbaskball]

Hello,
I am having extreme difficulty trying to acclimate my frogspawn to my metal halide lights. I have tried for 1 week, only having the metal halides on for an hour. During that hour, the frogpsawn gets stressed and the polps go in. I have done this for one week, then on the second week I raised it to 2hrs. but still no hope. They seem to stress even more.
My ammonia is 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ph between 7.9 (at night) to 8.2 (day)
The tank has been up and running for about 4months now.
It is a 14gal biocube running on 24watt 03actinic power compact lights (when the metal halides are not on) and 150watts of 10,000K metal halides.
Is there such thing as TOO MUCH light? Because that is what Im leaning on. I cant even seem to keep mushrooms even in the dark areas of my tank. Someone help!

 

[pallan]

when i upgraded to metal halides i placed three layers of window screen between the tank and the lights. every 3 days i pulled a screen off (had 3-4 layers of screen). this way you slowly acclimate them to the intensity of the light. IMO even shortning the time span but leaving at full intensity would be harsh on the coral.
if possible you could also raise the light in conjunction with the screen method after all screens are removed begin lowering it to the level you want it at slowlt over time. Mine hung on chains so i lowered it a link per day. Hope this helps

 

[lbaskball]

Thanks, maybe even though it was only for an hour, it was still too much intensity. I should of just had it turn on for 5 minutes ever hour for a total of 2hours, that way its diff.

 

[pallan]

Im not light expert but what ive been told tho is that you should not turn halides on and off to much. it take time for the gas inside to warm up and get to the point it needs to be at. by turning them on and off so much it would shorten their lifespan. Again no expert just what ive been told.'
I would go for the slow acclimation process myself. it worked for me. leave lights on just as long just limit the amount of actual light getting to them on a day by day basis and build it up to the level you want.

 

[24aqua]

i went from 195watt pc to 150 watt mh and it took my frog spawns a LONG time to acclimate if you can put all the way on bottom