New halide bulb - coral retraction?

It annoys me so much that this is still happening and Coralife has done nothing as far as I know to remedy the situation. I would put hope into your corals bouncing back... I had a frogspawn at that time, 6-8 healthy heads .. my very first coral, nuked, to nothing but it's skeleton. Left it it in the tank, lo and behold a small amount survived. It's grown to 30+ heads now, still doing well as of today ;D

What I was told all glass in some form will block UV light. Tempered glass is needed in the fixture next to the heat of the bulb, and some claim tempered will block more UV.

On my tank at the time I simply placed a piece of 1/8" standard glass (green glass) over the tank, instantly my problem was cured. No more sun burns for my fish or corals

 

You know I actually spoke to Coralife today and I was surprised to hear that the 2nd generation of this lamp does not have UV protection either as I thought it did.

Their customer service on the phone has been top shelf but I agree that this issue should be seriously addressed. They NEED to put this in instructions. I just looked at the pdf for my lamp - there is a mention about replacement bulbs from Coralife but NOTHING about UV at all. After witnessing the destruction from UV first hand, I will urge them to change that if not their lamp to the best of my ability.

I had the same problem as you today - nobody will make a piece of tempered glass that small. However, the local shop said that laminated glass will work. This glass has a thin layer of plastic in the middle that filters UV.

The problem with this option is the the glass is 1/4" thick and the slot on the lamp is slightly thinner so you have to grind the glass to fit. I actually attempted to do this today with a grinder and sandpaper. Long story short, after about an hour of doing that, I am having them do it right now. That is pretty dangerous work. I almost pulled it off, but came up short. At least I still have my fingers and eyes.

matt

 

You are busting you keister and fingers to take care of a nasty situation. K+

 

Kind of sad that they don't seem to care much about the actual cause of the problem. This should have been fixed immediately, that's some bad design. What if you burned and killed thousands in coral. Wow.

 

Thank you. I only bled a little bit.

Yeah it is pretty shocking to me. The best analogy I can make about the affects of unfiltered HQI halides on coral is putting your coral in a microwave for 30 seconds.

My fungia coral developed white spots and now has lost 25% of its skin. I don't think it will recover. The top of a bird's nest coral I got from a local is bleached. My acan looks like it is toast. My once gigantic frilly mushrooms are little nubs now. My favia frag is slothing.

Not sure what I will have left by next week.

 

That truly sucks. But corals are replaceable. Intense UV from the halide can cause retinal burns on your eyes. That presents a serious liability from their standpoint. It is not uncommon to replace a stock bulb with another brand, and unless they warn you in several places in the manual, the box, the fixture, etc. that replacing the stock bulb with a different one can cause UV damage to both you and your corals, they could have some legal problems eventually. I'm surprised they haven't yet.

 

Good point.

 

UPDATE -

The laminated glass experiment did not work. It can only handle heat up to 200 degrees before cracking. Even with fan, it lasted about 5 minutes before the first crack.

I have put the coralife bulb back in - my tank has been dark for about 2 days.

With the light on, the damage from the UV blast is absolutely shocking. Not only are most corals heavily damaged, the algae, both green and coraline have been zapped. My rocks are nearly gray.

This is really tough. I have been playing by the book this round and things were growing and looking fantastic. Now after simply changing a light bulb, I have essentially nuked my tank thanks to the hidden truth about UV protection (or lack there of) and this particular lamp. As pointed out by nazerine above, what I thought was a UV shield, was actually just a 'splash guard.' Nothing in the manual to forewarn me here. I hope that this thread helps save someone else with this lamp from this duress. It has been a tough week for me watching this play out.

 

not to mention, your bacteria were fried, thus taking a toll on your biological filter (although this will fix itself in a few days and is pretty much nothing compared to your coral losses)

 

Wow. That is tough man. Your tank will pull through though!

Have you contacted CoraLife again?