Burning softies

[Spykey]

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

[Agilecrux]

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.

[THEPHISHGUY]

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

[dendronepthya]

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.