24/7

I am going to go COWLR so can I leave my Actinic's running 24/7 and the daylight's 12...(or all 24/7))..My light's are 2-65 watt daylight (PC) 2-65 Watt Actinic

 

i think 24 hour actinics would cause algae, but if theres no fish so very little bioload i dont know how bad algae would be

 

i think the corals will need some downtime with little to know lights. no actinics. moonlights if you want. run actinics longer than daylights,but not 24/7

 

good point I better not chance it........

 

Yeah, even Cheato needs down time to grow properly. Corals need to rest.

 

Some corals, especially LPS are very impressive after the lights go out. A lot of corals llike to retract their polyps and extend their tentacles to feed. I would play it safe and use a day and night cycle.

 

I believe this is related to photoinhibition. At some point they can not use any more energy and actually can suffer from prolonged exposure to light. They're used to natural day/night cycles.

Photoinhibition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

i believe photoinhibition refers to too much light at one time.


i think theres a little bit of a misconception that plants need a dark period to even survive.
this is not true plants can live in 24 hr light, and often gardeners will do 24 hr lighting to speed vegetative growth of small plants, since the smaller the plant is the more vulnerable it is.
now the photosynthesis rate in a plant with 24 hr photoperiod will be less then in a plant with a 12 hr photoperiod. but same with a plant with a 12 hr vs a plant with a 6 hr photoperiod. the reason is the plant isnt as light starved, so it can feed at its luxury.

Also this isnt to say that a dark period isnt important in general. with out a dark period a plant wont have hormonal changes to produce flowers. so this means plants cant sexually reporduce in a 24hr photoperiod.

I would be very interested to see the % of 24hr fuges with caluerpa that goes sexual vs 12hr fuges that it went sexual in.(bolded for interest)

I do not pertend to say this pertains to corals or even that there cant be some plant exceptions but fuges can have a 24 hr photoperiod and have good plant growth.

 

This is where I got my information regarding photoinhibition. Not proof by any means and I'm no scientist but it discusses potential "permanent damage of photopigments and associated structures" from going through photoinhibitive periods where there is more light available than can be processed.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/july2004/feature.htm

Lots of people do maintain 24 hour lit refugiums I believe so it obviously works and seems to be mandatory for keeping caulerpa specifically but I just wouldn't want to put that to the test on my coral.

 

that part wasnt about your comment, only the first sentence was you the rest was the cheato needing down time comment, i guess i should have multi quoted

thanks for the link it makes me wonder the results on a 1 hour photoperiod followed buy 10 min darkperiod, done in a continous cycle.