Can I add light blues at the end of the day?

[Adam H Sherman]

I run a very conservative lighting schedule, this is a 9 month old system seeded with live rock, large Euphyllia and two fish I’ve had for over 20 years. The system has been has been flawless: minor gha, a touch of Cyano (both currently absent, the pic was taken a week ago, no Cyano now) with good coral growth. My nitrates and phosphates are very low 1 and .05 respectively. The lights are on from 10am-6pm with a 1 hour ramp, I could get more aggressive with UV and V but all is happy now so not interesting in ‘improving’ it.

For aesthetics on my end do you think adding blues at 3 or even 5% from 6-10 will disrupt my system in regard to algae or coral?

Any input is appreciated,
Adam

 

[Ron Reefman]

Six hours of peak intensity light is OK. Most corals can only do photosynthesis for about 5 to 8 hours. And they can only do photosynthesis with bright light, so sunrise ramp up and sunset ramp down are typically not of much influence to the coral. As for all your other inhabitants as well as algae and cyano, I think levels even higher than you asked about, of mostly blue spectrum, will be perfectly fine.

Just to compare, I run my lights from 6am till 10pm. A4 hour sunrise that is slow and more blue than midday. Six hours of intense midday of 90% blue and 30% white. Then a long, 6 hour sunset that ends with 3 hours of only blue. BTW, I think the last hour of my sunrise and the first hour or two of my sunset is still intense enough that my corals are dealing with zooxanthellae doing photosynthesis.

My corals have been picked mostly for their ability to fluoresce under blue light.

 

[canadianeh]

I run a very conservative lighting schedule, this is a 9 month old system seeded with live rock, large Euphyllia and two fish I’ve had for over 20 years. The system has been has been flawless: minor gha, a touch of Cyano (both currently absent, the pic was taken a week ago, no Cyano now) with good coral growth. My nitrates and phosphates are very low 1 and .05 respectively. The lights are on from 10am-6pm with a 1 hour ramp, I could get more aggressive with UV and V but all is happy now so not interesting in ‘improving’ it.

For aesthetics on my end do you think adding blues at 3 or even 5% from 6-10 will disrupt my system in regard to algae or coral?

Any input is appreciated,
Adam

How's your flame angel? Behaving well? It is on my stock list

 

[Adam H Sherman]

Six hours of peak intensity light is OK. Most corals can only do photosynthesis for about 5 to 8 hours. And they can only do photosynthesis with bright light, so sunrise ramp up and sunset ramp down are typically not of much influence to the coral. As for all your other inhabitants as well as algae and cyano, I think levels even higher than you asked about, of mostly blue spectrum, will be perfectly fine.

Just to compare, I run my lights from 6am till 10pm. A4 hour sunrise that is slow and more blue than midday. Six hours of intense midday of 90% blue and 30% white. Then a long, 6 hour sunset that ends with 3 hours of only blue. BTW, I think the last hour of my sunrise and the first hour or two of my sunset is still intense enough that my corals are dealing with zooxanthellae doing photosynthesis.

My corals have been picked mostly for their ability to fluoresce under blue light.

Your aquarium is short of stunning, thanks for the info,

 

[Adam H Sherman]

How's your flame angel? Behaving well? It is on my stock list

She’s fine with the corals though the 40g is way too small for her. I came close to giving her away with the tang and trigger but opted to bring her with me. She and the Maroon are cramped in the new tank but healthy and eating well.