New Lighting Cycle. Opinions?

[ChristianJock07]

My bulbs should arrive by Weds and now I'm trying to figure out what may be the best cycle to run to start. Upgrading from the T5's to the MH I don't want to over light the tank.

I'm thinking of having 1 MH come on around 3pm, the other at 4pm. The first one off at 9pm and the 2nd one off at 10pm.

This would sort of similate a dawn dusk effect since I'm not going to be running actinic's to start. And also have a total lighting time of 7 hours.

I'm toying with the idea of running two fans at 12v for cooling during the lighting time and running a fan or two with LED's at night for a nighttime effect. The fans at night would run at 8v and slow the speeds down, but it's still in the thought process.

I don't want to leave my lights on to long when first starting the new cycle, but I don't want to not leave them on long enough.

Any suggestions on a safe route to take? I would think 6-7 hours to start would be fine.....

thoughts?


I should add I'll be running 2 x 175 MH on a 75 gallon and the bulbs are 15k. So the color should be sufficient enough to suplement for the actinics.

[Deuter]

I would keep your T5's and have them first go on in the morning and last to go off at night. Run t5's for 8-10 hours and run MH's for 5-6 in the middle of your T5 cycle.

[Loverotties]

I agree with Cody~

[ChristianJock07]

I agree with keeping the T5's. However, that's not an option for me. My current T5 setup is a teklight 6x54. I would have to retrofit T5's to get it to work.