Do Corals Need a Night Period?

Shep · May 12, 2015

Would having a longer/constant photoperiod increase the amount of growth in corals or would having too little nighttime negatively impact corals? I always see people talking about this subject in regards to algae growth but not corals. Anyone have any idea? I know there is a lot of research published about this subject in plant models but corals and plants are pretty different so I don't know if you could carry over the data.

Nano sapiens · May 12, 2015

Corals do need a rest period. One major reason is that an excessively long photoperiod will disrupt the reproduction cycle of the zooxanthellae.

Feature Article: A Different Look at Lighting: Effects of Prolonged Photoperiod, Spectral Quality, and Light Dosage ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

miamiangler · May 12, 2015

I say yes , looking out my window no moon tonite !

Shep · May 13, 2015

Nano sapiens said:
Corals do need a rest period. One major reason is that an excessively long photoperiod will disrupt the reproduction cycle of the zooxanthellae.

Feature Article: A Different Look at Lighting: Effects of Prolonged Photoperiod, Spectral Quality, and Light Dosage ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

Awesome! thanks for the article

Mr. Microscope · May 14, 2015

I've read that corals do most of their growing at night. During the day, they're putting energy more into metabolizing.
There was a paper published showing that corals can only photosynthesize for four hours at a time. After that, sunlight is not beneficial. Using this data, the researchers came up with optimal growth utilizing two photo periods in 24 hours (4 hours light, 8 hours dark x2). Granted the experiment was done with 400w MH lighting. So, less intense lighting may produce different results.

gettaReef · May 14, 2015

Mr. Microscope said:
I've read that corals do most of their growing at night. During the day, they're putting energy more into metabolizing.
There was a paper published showing that corals can only photosynthesize for four hours at a time. After that, sunlight is not beneficial. Using this data, the researchers came up with optimal growth utilizing two photo periods in 24 hours (4 hours light, 8 hours dark x2). Granted the experiment was done with 400w MH lighting. So, less intense lighting may produce different results.

Interesting. Do you know, did they yield more growth using that lighting schedule? Have a link to the article? Thanks