Too much light?

[jagermeister]

Can you harm certain corals with too much light? Right now over my 55 I have approximately 160 watts of no lighting. I have some star polyps and mushrooms. Tonight I'm upgrading to 440 watts of vho. Should I take precautions to place the mushrooms and polyps in the shade for awhile? I'm equating this to when you move plants from the indoors to the outdoors for the summer. If you simply put them in the sun right off the bat they'll burn. Is the same true for corals?

 

[melbournefl]

All the literature I've read says to go slow with lighting upgrades or even bulb changes. I'd say the best bet is to turn on the VHO's one at a time over the period of a couple of weeks. If all the corals are doing okay with 160 watts, maybe turn on 1 - 110 VHO for a week, then 2 for the second week etc. I'm far from an expert here so I'm sure if I'm being too conservative one of the shark peoples will jump in (PLEASE) ...
Just my .02,
Paul

 

[jim672]

Corals can be shocked by lighting changes.
When I upgraded my lights from NO to MH/VHO, I set the timers to run the lights only a couple hours a day at the start. A few days later I increased the times an hour or so and kept doing that for about 2 weeks until I had resumed a "normal" lighting schedule.
I chose that approach rather than moving my corals all around. Even if you do decide to move them lower, I'd still reduce light time to allow the corals to adjust.
Jim