Ideal Lighting Program

Okay,

I run AI Sols on my tank and until now have had some initial success running a slow ramp up, slow ramp down type program.

After some thought, I wonder if this is perhaps a less than ideal way to use my lights. I did careful math to keep the color proportions the same throughout the day, but it's obvious that slight shifts happen.

I'm now thinking of switching to a more constant pattern, with a quick ramp up, a very long steady phase, and a short ramp down.

While the former scheme initially seems more natural, there are a lot of variables that could make that an illusory similarity. Even if the former is more natural, that's no reason to believe it is better.

Does anyone have ideas or information?

 

Why don't you want the longer ramping or color changes?

 

I have mine do a slow ramp up to the power i want and then hold steady for an hour before dropping back down. My ramp up is 4 hrs.

 

I ramp each color separately over a half hour then leave it for a half hour. I used to run a program that was constantly changing. From a deep blue in the am and pm and a very yellow in the mid day. I just found myself liking certain color temps so much that I ended up using that temp for my main "day setting". I never noticed much change in my corals between the two programs. They really didn't seem to care how I did it.

 

I don't know whether I do or I don't. What I'm curious to learn is whether my corals would prefer a long constant period, or an ever-changing cycle. My gut says that I have been wrong until now and that the former is preferable, but I have no evidence to support it (and I can think of at least one hypthesis that would support the more variable pattern).

 

There's no evidence I've seen to prove either way, but if we take a lesson from nature here, on the natural reefs both color and intensity are changing every hour of every day. I've run them both ways on not had any problems, so I would say you can run them which ever way you prefer.

 

Perfect, thanks!