20k to 15k lighting nightmare
I have had a 37 gallon with a 150W 20k MH for 6 years, it was a well established tank, real fiji tonga rock back when i could still find it. Anyways, I just upgraded to a 72 Bow with (2) 250W 15k MH. I put all my old rock and sand in the new tank with a little new base (dead & dry) rock, I used all of my old water also, had to also make some new water as you can imagine. Transfer complete now but it looks like the 15k’s were frying everything, the rock was even getting fried. This happened to me once before when i swapped my 150W 20K with a 10K same wattage, same fixture. I let it go a few days and ordered the 20K’s and replaced them and the damage appeared to go away, it worked then so i did it again this time and sure enough i got the same result. A few days later everything looks fine. in the middle of all this i believe the die off on the rock created an Ammonia spike barely readable on my test kits, and same with the nitrate, all the fish made it thru fine, a nudibranch died, but i believe they are very sensitive to any toxins such as ammonia. My corals got real fried, I had an acro die, a huge montipora, a bunch of zoo’s and mushrooms look not so good. The rest i put in my buddies tank with PC’s to recover, and theyre still in there as of right now.
Here’s the question……….what do you think is going on here? The corals were extremely close to my 150W and i know enough to keep everything far away from those 250W MH’s for a while. But even the rock was turning brown and the 20K’s fixed it quick, in like 2 days. Was is the ammonia or the light or both. New Tank Syndrome? I’s like to get my coral back when the ammonia and nitrate are back to zero.
Also, while were at it, is 500W of 20K too much for a 72 Bow?
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20k to 15k lighting nightmare