lighting schedule

Have a question on how to run our lighting once we start up our tank? Our live rock has alot of kenya tree coral already on it and also a hammer coral. I have seen so many lighting schedules so need to know the best time to run the blue lights and the best to run the white and blue daytime lights.

Also after seeing so many negative comments on crushed coral, we took it out and bought live sand so now I have all this crushed coral Is it ok to sprinkle a little of the crushed coral over the 2 " of live sand, just lightly without being a problem?

 

If the blue lights you are referring to are moonlights you can use them as much or as little as you would like.As for the blue and white daytime lights it's generally best to have the blues come on first and the whites about an hour later to "ramp up" the lighting and remain on for 8-10 hours and then have the whites go off about an hour before the blues to ramp down.The only problem with crushed coral is it can trap uneaten food and detritus,if you like the look of it you can use it but it would be good to vaccum it well when doing water changes.

 

I'm really new at this. We were given the tank, lights, etc. It has 2 48 " strips that have separate plugs. The one has all blue which I assume is the nighttime, the other has blue and white lights. Hope to get up and running within the week. RO system is ordered and later before we start getting coral we want to get better lighting as these are only .5 watt lights. We bought 40 lbs of live rock that we have in a big tub with the lights, saltwater and heater and a powerhead until we can get them in the tank. Just want to be sure we are running the lights like we should

 

Oh okay,I think I'm getting the picture.Your rock should be fine with whatever light you give it.If it has some corailline algae already present than the blue (actinic light) might help it to grow more but if your lights are weaker ones not intended for corals it probably won't make much difference.Are the lights you have LED strips?

 

yes they are a double strip. One has a row of all blue and the other is alternating white and blue. The rock we bought is beautiful from a guy on craigslist. it's full of coralline algae. Pics attached. Even have a hammer coral and lots of kenya trees

 

Rock looks great,good find.I'm not familiar with what lights they might be but I think I would leave them all on about 10-12 hours a day to keep the corals going till you get set up and upgrade the lights.

 

thanks for all your help. Sure appreciate it.

 

Your quite welcome and welcome to 3reef.Any questions you might have just ask away,there are alot of good people on here willing to help.