Fried Pagoda?

i recently just upgraded my lighting from regular pc to 2 150 watt metal halide with 2 120 watt actinic pcs almost doubling my watt to tank volume ratio. it was at about 2.8 watts per gallon, now its at exactly 6 watts. anyway, my pagoda cup is positioned directly beneath one of the MH bulbs just under the surface and within the 1st week of the new lights it started to bleach out, i didnt change the light schedule to compensate for the new light output and this is probably the reason for the bleaching, however the question is should i leave it in the tank or take it out???

 

Lower it to as low as you can take it. See if it comes back. There is a difference between bleached and dead so lets hope it's just bleached
If algae starts to grow on it, it's likely dead


J

 

it has algae growing on the bleached out spots, it still has color around where the polyps extend, and is only somewhat bleached out. i dont really want to move it because it has grown onto the live rock it was placed on and looks really natural, should i just break it off anyway and hope it comes around?

 

you could also cut you photo period way down.

but I think the fact that the coral is so close to the surface it may get burned even with the light time cut down.
You can also use shade cloth or layers of screen over the tank. This will block some of the light and you remove layer after layer over a few weeks until the corals are used to the change in lighting

Light acclimation is very important as you have now discovered

J

 

yeah, i now realize how important acclimation is, i simply thought that the corals polyps would just close up when they have had enough light and this would prevent them from light shock, guess i was wrong :-[