Need Help! - Hurricane Ike Sudden Coral Decline

[gaber1]

I've had a Biocube 29 reef tank up and going for about 1.5 years. Everything has been going great up until about 3 days ago. I live in Houston and lost power during Hurricane Ike. However, I was able to obtain a generator and get the tank up and running again in about 24 hours. I checked all the water parameters with good results:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: < 1 ppm
pH: 8.3
Temp: 78 - 80
Alkalinity: 10 dKh
Calcium: 400 ppm

During the main power outage, I lifted the hood up about 10" or so to help keep the temp down. This worked well and kept the temp below 80. The hood was left like this for about a week, so all corals received less lighting for this time period. Once the power came back on, I lowered the hood back down. Everything looked great for the next several days. However, this Wednesday I forgot to turn the lights off at night and they stayed on for over 24 hours. The normal light schedule had been 8 hours on during the day, off 16 hours. Once I noticed he lights had been on continuously, most of the corals had shriveled up significantly. I turned the lights off and returned to the normal lighting schedule. However, some of the corals are still shrunken. Here's there approximate status after three days back on the normal light schedule:

Open Brain (trach. radiata): opening fully
Orange Plate Coral: Opening 50%, tenticles shrunken.
Polyp Rock (platy?): opening fully
Pocillipora: Opening partially, turned from pink to orange, some white bleaching at the very bottom
Large Green Hairy Mushroom: Opening 25%, tenticles shrunken
Lobophyllia Brain: Opening 80%, slight tissue recession

My main concern is the large mushroom, plate coral, and pocillipora. I am convinced the excess lighting schedule caused the decline. I have rechecked all water parameters and everything is still fine (see above). There was an algae bloom after the excess lighting, but it is starting to subside.

This moring, I lifted the hood back up 10" or so and there appears to be a very small improvement.

Not sure what else I can do, but how much can an excess lighting interval damage corals. What else could have happened due to the excess lighting? I'm inlcined to leave the lighting low for a while and see what happens. Any other suggestions?

Lastly, if excess lighting was the problem, will the pocillipora coral gain it's pink color back?

Sorry for the rambling, but this is frustrating to see such a decline in just a few days after a year or more of healthy animals, escpeccialy after making it through the hurricane unscathed!

Thanks!

[prickles]

I would guess they are "sunburned." It also happens if you replace your bulbs or upgrade your lighting willy nilly. They should eventually recover, however I know one guy who said it took one of his corals about 2 years to get back to where it was.

[klondike4001]

They should be fine, I had to run my lights for only 2-4 hours a day after ike due to temp issues (MH + No AC = Bad Results) My corals have lost some color but everything's alive, I expect it to be a month or 2 before they regain thier usual color, but I'm not worried and I doubt you should either.

I'm in Conroe btw, if you get really really worried, I can come take a look, but I'm relatively sure everything will be fine.

[OceansCoral]

Yep sounds like they got burnt from the 24hour lights on. They will come back but may take awhile.

[scapes]

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