What is a Good Lighting Schedule

Forum:

I currently am running my Power Compact Fluorescent 24in ODYSSEA Lighting for approximately 12 hours and in the evening i turn on the Actinic lighting followed by moon overnight. Is this a good schedule?

Also does the Actinic lighting need to be on during the day for the well being of the tank in general?

Ty

E

 

How many hours do you keep each light on? Or better yet, can you list your schedule and time stamp it? For example:

From 9am - 12pm actinics on
from 12pm - 6 pm daylight on
from 6pm - 9 daylight + actinic
etc?

Also, check out where you post your threads. This one belongs to the Reef lighting forum (Reef Lighting - 3reef Forums). The ASAP forum is for urgent help, like if your fish or something in your tank is at risk of dying.

 

Got it sorry guys thanks Magnus ...

As far as my current schedule it goes as follows:

From 6am - 6pm daylight on*
From 6pm - 12am actinic on
From 12am - 6am moon lights on

* Should i have atinics on as well?

Once again Thanks Magnus and Merry Xmas

E

 

i dont like leaving lights on 100 percent of the day on the tank.
this is how most people run their lights
atinics on all day +1 hour at the end of the day and at the beging, it simulates sunrise.
next my MH come on at noon. they stay on untill 7. then i run moonlights untill 11.
so
from 11 am to 8 pm,atinics
from noon to 7pm, MH
from 7:30 pm to 11 pm, moonlights

 

Here is mine

Actinics 9am-7pm
10k 10am-6pm

Actinics should be on for an extra hour just to simulate the sun going down basically.

 

No problem, bud!

As far as the schedule, I think 12 hours of daylight may be too much. I'm saying this based on my own experience though. I used to have an 11 hrs daylight schedule and nothing showed any more progress than with a 6 or 7 hour schedule. I'm now at 8 hrs and testing the results.

With the actinics, I believe the par they put out will help your corals grow and display better colors than the par output of just daylight. Plus, the blue usually brings the reds and greens out, making corals look nicer IMO.

Hope it helps. I'm sure there are a bunch of people that have studied or researched the different benefits of the different light schedules. Hope they can help you some more.

- Mag.

 

Thanks Magnus Zoanthids21 i see it is a work in progress and everyone is different i will be trying out different schedules.

Thanks Guys

E

 

Er, everyone's start /stop times is different, but we ALL follow the same basic schedule.

Actinics on, hour or so later daylights on. about 6-8 hours later daylights off. about an hour or so after that actinics off.

Actinics on
daylights on
daylights off
actinics off

follow that schedule whatever you do.

moon lights can stay on all night, mine do.

Otherwords, don't run your daylights if the actinics aren't already on...

 

Peredhil sounds like a winner to me and will be starting this schedule ASAP thanks again crew and Merry Xmas to you Peredhil.

E

 

you too dude. merry xmas