Lighting Time

What would be a reasonable amount of time to keep aquarium lights on during the day, and then at night? And won't I have to use a timer?

 

10 hours of continuous light per day is nice. Unless you get algae.

 

1hr of dawn-8hr of day light-1hr of dusk-lunars if you have em or not

 

Well, actually I don't have that, just regular lights with a timer and switch:-/

 

You'll need two timers. The actinics will stay on two hours more than the whites. One hour before whites and one hour after.

 

The equator is generally close to 12hrs per day. I see no reason to deviate substantially.

 

I normally do 1 hour of dimmed lighting in the morning, 11 hours of day, 1 hour of dimmed for the evening, 4 hours of darkness, then 4 hours of moonlight. and that leaves me with 4 hours of darkness before the morning lights come on.

My button polyps glow under my moonlight and my percula clown looks black and white which is so awesome.

 

But if I don't have a lighting system or fixture that is able to use lunar,dawn/dusk lighting and only uses a on/off switch, then what's my plan?

 

I would just go with 8 - 10 hours a day. I have my lights come on around 1 pm and go off around 10 pm. That way they are on when I can look at my tank the most.

 

+1^ that's how mine is set.