How much lights???

[lanman]

I just realized that I set my lights for 1 hour actinics, 7 hours sunlight, 1 hour actinics a long time ago, with a plan to increase it.

 

How many hours would you suggest for my T5's ?? Maybe I would get better growth with a longer photoperiod?? (I don't suppose there's a chance it would help with nitrates...)

 

bob

[jamesbuf]

I would like if the corals more, then they would pull more nutrients out of the water. Right?

[lanman]

Hard to believe nobody has a suggestion for a proper photoperiod for me. Bump!!

 

bob

[Origami]

For a while there, when I had longer photoperiods, I had to battle cyano. That had me cut back (from a 12-hour day - 1 actinic + 10 MH + 1 actinic) to a photoperiod more like yours, Bob. I think I'm running 1 hr of actinic lighting on either side of an 8 hour actinic + MH period, giving me 10 hours of daylight and 14 hours of dark nowadays. That's about an hour or so longer than I was doing earlier. Of course, the tropics have longer days than that, typically, right?

[Stephen]

My t-5 are on the following schedule.

 

10 am actinics on (2x39 watts)

11 am actinics and daylight bulbs on (1 39 watt actinic & 3 10,000k daylight)

9 pm actinics and daylight off

10 pm actinics off

[Coral Hind]

The demand of what you have in the tank would be a big factor.

 

My four T5's over my LPS/softy tank come on at 2pm and off at 10pm.

 

The lighting over my SPS tank is two T5 actinic on from 12:00-10:30, two 250W MH on from 1pm-10pm,

[Coral Hind]

What corals are in this tank?

 

If they are SPS, then I would step it up an hour for a week and then up one more hour for a total of two extra hours. Just my 2 cents.

Edited September 11, 2008 by Coral Hind

[DDiver]

I have my actinics come on a half hour before the halides come on and then a half hour after the halides go off to simulate sunrise and sunset..the actinics run all day for a total of 9 hours of light per day..I'm thinking about kicking it up for another hour...

[lanman]

Thanks... I just added 1 hour to my main lights. So now the total is 10 hours - 8 with the main lights on. Let's see what happens.

 

bob