Burning softies
 

I recently added two 175 watt 10K halides to my 9 month old system. The system previously had two 110 watt VHO's (super actinic and 50/50). After about ten minutes the Tonga toadstools seemed to burn and not extend their polyps. I immediately turned the lights off. Is this unusual? How do I properly acclimate the toadstool and the other softies to the more powerful lights?

The softies I have are : Zooanthids, 2 gorgonians several mushrooms and several star polyps :confused:

raise the MH light 2-3 ft above surface of tank. over a couple of weeks period keep lowering the lights.

you might have to even move the softies to a lower part of the tank.

I had the same problem as you. Last month i switched from 244 watts pc to 500 watts mh. Al my softies did terrible for about two weeks. I lowered the photoperiod to 4 hours a day and increased half hour each day till i was back to nine hours. Try this and as agilecrux said move softies to the lowest, shadiest parts of the tank....HTH Dave

Every coral needs time to acclimate to new lighting. That being said, soft corals can take a LOT more light than what you are providing. I have my tank lit with 2 - 400W halides, and the mushrooms and soft corals are doing just fine. They just need some time to acclimate.