Star Polyps not extending like before

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Mike87SS

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Mar 29, 2004
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I have a rock that is covered in star polyps, and have noticed that since I have upgraded the lighting, they have not been extending out as far as they used to. They started under NO lighting, then were under 4X65 CF, and then this past weekend, a lightning bolt fried the ballast in the fixture, so I returned the fixture and upgraded to 4X96 coralife CF's. I am wondering if I should maybe move the star polyps out of the light to make them extend out a little more. Thoughts? :confused:

By the way, my tank is unbeleivably bright with these new lights, but I cant open the glass canopy while the light is on top of the tank. Any tricks around this or do I have to take the fixture off the tank everytime I need to get in there?
 
Give them some time to acclimate to the new light. It will take the corals a few weeks to get used to the new light, and then they should extend as previously.

You can build a canopy that the light will sit on, and have a door to allow access. If you have the Corallife strips, you can buy legs that will hold the strip above the glass--but they can be a pain to work around as well. I've built a canopy for my 55 with these lights, and will be building one for the 40 sometime soon as well--just makes it easier.
 
Thanks for the input. I have the Coralife Lunar setup, with the legs attached. I actually think that I am going to either go with an eggcrate top, or slice the hinge that holds the glass top together, and be able to simply remove the panes of glass when I need entry into the tank. I hope that these polyps get used to the light, as they were really nice before, and I miss that.
 
The polyps should get used to it. I upgraded from VHO to MH, and the only thing that doesn't look better now are the mushrooms--with the higher light, they stay flat against the rocks instead of stretching up. Took about 2 weeks for everything to make the transition.
 
I had 6-55 watt compact on my tank with stars polyps and they did fine. i added two 175 MH and now it is like cutting grass. I wish I could fined a way to prepare to eat star polyps and mushrooms. I have to throw away both items they grow so fast. They will adjust. It is like growing zuchnini in the garden, I am losing friends because they can't take all the extra mushrooms and star polyps.
 
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