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View Full Version : Too much light (TOADSTOOL LEATHER)



Drew
28th January 2010, 09:56 AM
Hi,

I went away on australia day and was away for about 48 hours.

my girlfriend before I left the house ducked back in the turned on the lights in the tank.

they were on for the entire time and I worry this may have really upset my corals. When I arrived home my hammer coral was bigger than ever, but my toadstool leather coral who only days ago slimed and then grew 1.5 times the size he was originally has gone back in a bit.

my fish appear absolutely fine.

How should I get the cycle of light they are used to back to normal, should I just jump back into 6-8 hrs a day when I get home from work or should i play around and leave the light off for a while.

could anything else be consistently upsetting this toadstool.

My tank consists of:

- Toadstool leather coral
- Zoanthids
- Large Hammer coral (all 3 corals very seperate in the tank as to not come into contact with eachother)
- 1 small blue tang
- 2 small ocellaris clowns
- 1 valentini puffer
- 1 coral angel

about 15-16kg of live rock. In a 130L tank.

The water levels are:

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 0 ppm
Ph: 8.2-8.4 it varies day to day
temp: I had issues here but with help from people at LFS brought this back to 26-27 degrees celcius
calcium: 460-500, also varies day to day but does not drop below 460 nor go above 500.

I have the built in filter (in a aqua one 620T) and also an additional powerhead a bit lower down to keep the current, none of which are blowing directly onto the coral.

I do water changes of 25L every Saturday as I don't have a protein skimmer. I obtain all water from LFS and do not mix up myself as I'd rather use sea water, before putting this into my tank I mix in 20ml of stress zyme and 2 ml of bio-trace (a mixture of trace elements - for corals).

What of all of this could be upsetting my coral. I had bristle worms which may have chewed on it but then when I got the puffer, he ate the worms within 2 minutes of being put into the tank. (yes, valentini puffers will rid your tank of bristle worms!).

Anyway, thanks people I appreciate any input you have!!

Lucifer
29th January 2010, 11:07 PM
You be fine with going back to the lighting hours you use to. Your corals will be back to normal in a few days. No need to stress out.

Why not put a timer on the lights. Make things much easier for you.

All my tank lights are on timers. I will never go back to manually turning on lights again.

Drew
30th January 2010, 07:00 PM
Thanks a lot I will stick to original times, the leather is coming out more now everything is looking great. Now the next task lies in choosing my last fish for the community! Open to any suggestions!

Lucifer
1st February 2010, 03:22 PM
My suggestion: Let the fish grow out... The blue tang will get too big for a 130l tank. The puffer will be ok, but they do get to about 10cm.
Get yourself a lawnmower or bi-colour blenny. They have great personality. Otherwise coral globy, but the puffer might be too aggressive to them...