Yes, definitely. Otherwise corals in the tank may be adversely effected by the sudden increase in light intensity.

The reason is that over time the intensity of light given off by the bulbs (no matter what sort, metal halide or fluorescent) decreases as they age. The corals in the tank are use to that intensity and have acclimatised themselves. When new bulbs are installed, suddenly the light intensity is increased, and the change can be very significant. Of course sudden changes are not generally good for photosynthetic corals and they can either bleach or even die. If they are not killed they will acclimatise to the new lighting, but it is far better to make the transition much more smoothly, avoiding any adverse effects to the corals.

When the new bulbs are installed the intensity of light that the corals recieves has to be increased slowly, giving them time to acclimatise. There are three ways to do that, place something between the bulbs and the tank to reduce the light intensity (such as shade cloth), reduce the photoperiod so that the lights are on for a reduced length of time, or increase the distance that the bulbs are from the tank and slowly bring them down over a couple of weeks. Which technique depends on bit on the particular set up of the lights over the tank, but the latter is probably the preferable method.

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