Those of us in the nano-tank world know that you should routinely change out your bulbs. Experts say you should “burn in” the bulb for awhile before going full intensity (chances are good your old bulb wasn’t kicking out anywhere near the PAR of the new one).
I’ve been running on a 14k bulb for quite some time now, but opted to upgrade to a new 20k Ushio bulb about a week ago. I “burned in” the bulb over a couple of days by adjusting my aqua program to periodically turn the bulb off for a bit (theoretically allowing all those critters in your tank to recover from the new blast of light). After a couple weeks of this, I’m now noticing that coral colors have definitely faded, some have even bleached a bit, due to the new light. Of course, the chances are good that the color will return within a few weeks/months but it left me wondering … should you upgrade your lighting spectrum when you replace your bulbs?
I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences and share any links you might have to offer. Feel free to comment below!
When changing any lamp, you should start with a either a much shorter photoperiod or raise the light higher up – a combination of both methods works best. Time period to acclimatise your tank will depend on your corals – but I found a 10-14 day period worked best for me when using various K 150w MH over my old 12g system.