Help Please...all coral's bleaching

I have had my 55G setup for over 2 years, and with no major problems.

I had a problem with my T5 lights and they almost lit my house on fire while i was sleeping.

I got new lights...i got 2x 60W cree LED light units and had them running for the last 4 months.

Everything in my tank has taken a turn for the worst.....My large brown zoa colony has turned into a small patch of little white shriveled husks. My Long tenticle anemone has shrunken and is loosing its color and is now wondering my tank.

I thought my lights might have been burning them so the last 2 months i have run them on the lowest setting possible (was running them half way before)

No change...

short of getting a different lighting system, what can i do?

water parameters are good.

Any help appreciated.

 

Just cut down your photo period like you are and once they start coloring back then increase the photo period.

 

well one thing i have noticed is, if i leave the blue lights off and just the whites on the anemone will stay put. with both on it deflates and wonders around the glass on the top portion of the tank.

I have tried shortening the photo period like said but my anemone wonders into powerheads and my overflow and had to pull him out a few times.

I will try doing it again but is it possible they are bleaching because the light is not in the correct spectrum?? like 10K and 14K that i was using on the T5 setup i had before? or is it possible they are bleaching from not enough light??

 

probably from too much of a light change either + or - in too little time

 

Is there anyway you can raise the lights? How far are they above the tank now?

 

my lights were at the celing and I could go no higher...

I went back to a 4x54W T5 fixture my old bulbs back in it and the anemone seems to be showing signs of improvement right off the hop. It no longer wanders the tank...its staying put again.

my kenya tree coral which I thought was doing ok under the LED lights looks alot better and is much larger.

the large brown zoanthids are still white husks on the LR....I think with time they should fill back in.

I won't knock the lights as being the problem, I think its a combination of the depth of my tank, and the space i had available between my celing and top of the water.....1 fixture rather than 2 might have been the answer but I couldn't get the fixture high enough above the tank to cover it with light using only 1 fixture..

The only coral I have that is unchanged is my carnation coral.....I have had it for about 8 months and is growing slowly upside down in a cave i built. parts of it are deep orange and another smaller growth is coming in a light pink color.

 

I am not so sure that the problem has been generated because of your too strong lighting. I am saying that because zoathides are happy under strong lighting and in the past I had made a lot of big changes (from T5 fixtures to MH) without any problem. I can say that they accepted more lighting with happiness…

If I were you, I would check all my water parameters.

Please also provide us with your daily schedule regarding any additional supplements that you may use.

 

2 60W is nothing on a 55g. It sounds like your corals don't like the blue light. Some corals have a tough time adapting to less natural, "peaked" spectrum. It also sounds like your corals are dying from too little light though. Personally, I would try running just the whites at maybe 50% or so, with maybe a 6h photoperiod. The blues completely off. Then add about 5% to the blue every week and if everything looks to be doing okay, add about 1/2 hour to the photoperiod every week. If everything is adapting well, you can then start adding a few percent to the whites as well. It can really take a lot of work to properly acclimate corals to peaked spectrums, but I've found once they are acclimated, you can blast the heck out of them without issue; it's just like any other lighting...

 

well i am unsure of the root cause, I switched back to a 4x 54w T5 fixture and everything is starting to regain the color back....i have been using the T5 for 2 weeks and noticed a huge difference almost immediately with the anemone....with the LED's it wandered my tank non stop....back to T5's and it hasn't moved since using the T5's

My large brown zoa colony was hit the worst.....they use to be huge and full of color, they looked like shrunken white husks on my LR when i stopped using the LED's...they are still white and don't open up.

Do you think they will come back to life in time or are these dead now? 1 or 2 polyps out of maybe a hundred have slight color and are open but the little hairs(not sure how to describe) on the outer edge of the zoa polyps are missing :-/