Calling all experts

Hey the other day i was reading somewhere, dont remember where but some guys on a forum were talking about running their lights 4on and 8 off cycle..The said this is what most coral propogators (sp?) do to grow coral at a faster rate..Anyone else heard this.. All these guys were just starting the little experiment with their tanks.. Anyone wanna talk about the positvies and negatives of this.. idk i never heard of this until the other day from anyone..

for example:

on from 6am-10am
off from 10am-6pm
back on from 6pm-10pm
off from 10pm-6am

 

Google coral photoinhibition.

Ever noticed your SPS that are trained to be open during the day pulling in their polyps before the end of your photoperiod? If so, the photoperiod is too long. Without getting too complex, the zoox is producing too much Oxygen and they start "eating" them to spit them out when they open again.

My SPS frag tank ran on two 6 hour cycles. I would rather them conserving energy for growth rather than expending it on controlling respiration.

EDIT: Also google Dana Riddle and coral lighting articles. Here's one I found for you that might be useful but he has a lot more recent ones regarding lighting and coloration in the Advanced Aquarist archives. http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/d_riddle_090599.html

 

Very interesting, anyone else have anything to say about this? Inwall75 do you think this is mostly for sps or do you see this happening with lps too?

 

If your lighting is very intense and you watch your LPS closing down to expose less of their surface area to the light, then this could help in that situation too.

 

^^^^ +1, after days of googling I found a similiar article and it explained my frogspawn panic. Cutting them down about an hour on each end has helped them alot & they look 100% better.