[arkinsey]

Just a question about my current light schedule. I am currently running 6 T5's (3 10k and 3 Actinic) on the following schedule:

12:00 - Actinic Only
13:00 - Actinic & 10k
19:00 - Actinic Only
20:00 - Moonlights

Any advice????

 

[fsureefer]

looks good to me. do you run your moonlights all night? i know my fish like total darkness to sleep. this is my schedule

8am- moonlights on
9am- actinic on
11am- daylight on
6pm- daylight off
830pm- actinic off
830pm- moonlights on
midnight- moonlights off

 

[FutureDoc]

Looks fine.

For example, my lighting schedule is as followed (175w MH):

16:00 Halides on
23:25 Halides off

 

[cutietwo]

sounds good to me. I think you should have the actinic lights and days on for a longer time, closer to 9 hours or so. 6 hours does not really seem like enough. You want to mimic nature as much as possible. Just think the corals in the reef see around 12 hours of light a day. My schedule is:
11 am-actinics on
12pm-days on
9pm- days off
10pm-actinics off and moons on
~1:30am-moons off

 

[FutureDoc]

actually, "in nature" corals do not receive 9 hours of intense light. Due to refraction (the way water reflects and distorts light), the amount of intense light is only about 4-6 hours in the wild. It is amazing the amount of difference between the amount of light penetration at 10am and at noon because the water surface reflects more at non-90 degree angles. That small of angle really changes the intensity. Because our lighting system in our tank are less intense normally than natural sunlight, it is "ok" to run longer photoperiods. That being said, what is natural is more of a gradual increase/decrease with only a limited amount of full strength lighting. As a result, corals tend to do all then need to do photosynthetically in about a 4-6 hour range.

 

[Nate_Bro]

Looks fine.

For example, my lighting schedule is as followed (175w MH):

16:00 Halides on
23:25 Halides off

haha I like this one, and I'll be doing a similar schedule once I get my MH

175w MH, what size tank is this over, 20g?

 

[FutureDoc]

40B w/ 10g sump. I had the same schedule with the 120g with the dual 250w. The 120g was much more stable... how I miss it. it was only 6h photoperiod over my 65g. I might reduce it on the 40B if temps/AC usage increases during this warm spring weather.

As for the precious comments, that information about surface reflection and refraction based on solar angle was picked up from my limnology (study of lakes) class when I had to calculate energy imputs. I am assuming that the same principle affects saltwater too. I know more PAR is reflected from a still tank that one with surface agitation... interesting stuff. :lol:

 

[Nate_Bro]

40B w/ 10g sump. I had the same schedule with the 120g with the dual 250w. The 120g was much more stable... how I miss it. it was only 6h photoperiod over my 65g. I might reduce it on the 40B if temps/AC usage increases during this warm spring weather.

As for the precious comments, that information about surface reflection and refraction based on solar angle was picked up from my limnology (study of lakes) class when I had to calculate energy imputs. I am assuming that the same principle affects saltwater too. I know more PAR is reflected from a still tank that one with surface agitation... interesting stuff. :lol:

I know more PAR is reflected from a still tank that one with surface agitation... interesting stuff. :lol:

I can see that....

just can't work out in my head the back side of a swell not reflecting as much light as the face is receiving. but I guess the added surface area regardless, adds more refraction, and penetration opportunities. not to mention the extra light the edges of the tanks would receive, that in a mirror surface would reflect all light.... that alone is a great reason!