Thinking about trying something different with my light cycle...

I have a 65g with 2x150w 14k MH HQI and 2x39w T5 actinics...one 420 and one 460. I have all softies right now. A nice size zoa colony, 3 different leathers, and a frog spawn.

My current light cycle is...I am a night owl:

Actinics on 5:30pm
Actinics and MH on 6:30pm
MH off at 1:30
Actinics off at 2:30


Right now everything looks geat until about 10:00 when the leathers and frogspawn start to retract. The zoas always look good. I was thinking that the leathers may be getting too much light inesity for too long of a time.

I was thinking about trying something like this:

Actinics on 5:30pm
Actinics and MH on 6:30pm
MH off at 9:30 (Just actinics)
Actinics and MH on 11:30pm
MH off at 2:30 (Just actinics)
Actinics off at 3:30


That would be 10 hours of total light. Two 3 hr sessions with the MH with a 2 he break between, and the actinics on for the full 10 hrs.


Has anyone tried anything like this? Is it logical to those who know more then me?

 

Idk how it would be for the coral but I kno some have tried it and their fish suffered.just like with ppl who sleep alittle here and alittle there they end up going nuts.

 

I actually thought about that. I thought by keeping the 2 T5s on would keep the fish from thinking it is sleepy time...kind of like in nature where it gets cloudy.

 

Shouldn't hurt the fish will stay up with the actinics on except for wrasses. Another alternative is have 2 or 3 hours on the actinics before and after the MH.

 

I would still run the MH on a single on/off cycle instead of two cycles. Just maybe reduce the number of hours on from 8 down to 5.5 or 6.

 

i would try to add another pice of glass under the MH 1/8" should be what 8-10% cut back in uv just might be what you need i would worry about 2 strong cycles affecting the zoas