woundering what your lighting schedule is. currently im doing 12 hr compacts 9 hour mh. im going to bring it down to 10 hr compacts 8 or less mh.
ive been bringing it down slowly (15 min a week). theres a good chance ill bring the timing down once i see what everyone else is doing so lets get some data. thanks
after thinking aboout it a little im thinking something like this
when i hd mh i ran them fo 5 and actinics for 12 . alot of people over light there tank and it does nothing but hinder the corals. i got great growth/color with 5 hours 175 watt mh over my 20gallon.
i generally agree with addicted, and actually ran the exact same photo peried over my 75 gallon. I ran 2 X 54w T5 actinics for 12hrs and 2 X 250W MH for 5 hours midday. it might not be as subtle as using timers with a large bulb array or dimmers, but i think it worked very well to roughly simulate the suns zenith during mid photo period.
i know i for one ran my bulbs WAY to much. I didnt dial back my photoperiods until about a year or so agao after seeing the results that Andy was getting on a 6 hr photoperiod. Although their is generally 12hrs of sunlight at most of the sites where our corals are collected, the actual amount of radiation that reaches the corals is far from being constant.
also, i recall reading an artical about a corals capacity to absorb radiation. i dont recall many details, but apparently there is a “maximum” amount of time that a coral can be exposed to radiation and benefit from it. some people have gone so far as to running two distinct photoperieds in one 24 hour cycle. IE 6 on 6 off 6 on 6 off in one day. im not sure what the results were, but i think anything more than low power actinics for more than 8 hours is unnecessary IME.
WOW, Ive been running my new DIY 150 MHs pendant for 12-13 hours. act T5s too. had been on one timer the past 5 weeks. all my frags are turning blue. which is kinda cool . so after reading here tonight, i separated the timers . and will try the acts on for 13 hours and the MH HQIs for about 10. and see what happens.
I run 6 t-5 bulbs on both of my tanks. I run 2 bulbs for 10 hours and all 6 for only-5-6 hours. I get great growth. I couldn’t imagine running them for longer.
[quote=“houndsbayman, post:7, topic:2428”]
Here is a copy of a schedule of lighting schedule from RC Tank of the Month.[/quote]
Not a bad idea to look at that to get some feedback, but would never follow it as the law. I have seen many things written in TOTM profiles that I would never do with my tank. Also that is 11 hours, but I am sure you will find a huge range of numbers. In November of 08 the TOTM had 6 hours of MH a day.
To me it depends, to a large extent, on the system and the corals.