Is my lighting to strong for my Innovative Marine 40 lagoon??

[Sump’nFishy]

Hi, I was hoping to get you guys opinions on my situation. I’m running two ai prime 16 hds on my AIO Innovative marine 40g lagoon. The lights are mounted at roughly 9 1/2” from the water line and they run for a period of 14 hours per day (do to work schedule) with 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down. Tank depth is about 12” from from water line to the bottom glass. As far as coral goes I have mosty softies and lps with the exception of a few sps corals. The sps seem to be fine but I have a couple large zoa colonies that have either browned out or lost color (will post pics) and I have a chalice that has lost color and has started receding and seems to never stay happy no matter where I put it in the tank but my other two chalice are thriving and unfortunately I don’t have access to a par meter where I live. Can these issues be a result of too much intensity or because of my longer photo period? I’ve moved one of the zoa rocks to the bottom but unfortunately the other colony has now spread onto other rocks and is kind of stuck in that spot. Idk guys I’m new to the hobby with only 15 months experience and was just hoping to get some input from some of you more experienced reefers. If need more information about anything I’ll be glad to share it with you. Here are some pics of the tank and the zoas I’m referring to as well as my water parameters and lighting schedule.

Salinity- 35 ppt
Temp- 78
Alk- 9.6
Cal- 450
Mag- 1380
Ph- 8.1
No3- 15ppm
Po4- 0.08

lmk if any other info or pics are needed. Thanks

 

[Naekuh]

The only visual diagnosis on if your light is too strong or not, is if you see bleaching of corals.
Another would be if you had a massive algae growth which you could not contain.
This could also be another sign of too much light.

Otherwise, no one can answer this question without you breaking out a PAR meter and listing out PARs.

 

[PharmrJohn]

I believe BRS has a PAR meter you can buy for around $600, then send back with a restocking fee of something like $100. I think you have 30 days to play with it. I'd say, for you, this is your best option. I'll end up keeping it as I'll be changing up my lighting sometime down the road. And it'll be good to have around......

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

a par meter is the only way to tell, but I seriously doubt it, AI Prime is not that strong. My 40 gallon has MH light plus 2 OR3 bars for 10 hours a day.

As you mention, corals have browned out or lost colour, this is usually due to lower light. But again, par meter is the only way to know.

 

[Sump’nFishy]

The only visual diagnosis on if your light is too strong or not, is if you see bleaching of corals.
Another would be if you had a massive algae growth which you could not contain.
This could also be another sign of too much light.

Otherwise, no one can answer this question without you breaking out a PAR meter and listing out PARs.

The only visual diagnosis on if your light is too strong or not, is if you see bleaching of corals.
Another would be if you had a massive algae growth which you could not contain.
This could also be another sign of too much light.

Otherwise, no one can answer this question without you breaking out a PAR meter and listing out PARs.

I do feel like some of my coral could be more colorful. I did notice that on the zoas that have lost color, the lower polyps that are more shaded are beautiful. I think they are utter chaos or Halle berry… not %100 sure. Also the polyps that are at top of colony are smaller and squinched slightly. The other colony of zoas that have browned it’s pretty much the same. Polyps on bottom have color, polyps on top are squinched. Only difference is they browned at top of colony. They did used to be higher in tank and I recently put them at the bottom so only time will tell I guess. As far as algae issues I am dealing with bubble algae that I manually remove and also have some emerald crabs that help out. Thinking about lowering intensity a little and going from there I guess. Thanks alot