How long is too long to run your lights on your saltwater reef aquarium?

How long is too long to run your aqaurium lights?

  • More than 6 hours

    Votes: 8 0.9%
  • More than 7 hours

    Votes: 24 2.7%
  • More than 8 hours

    Votes: 65 7.4%
  • More than 9 hours

    Votes: 78 8.8%
  • More than 10 hours

    Votes: 189 21.4%
  • More than 11 hours

    Votes: 101 11.5%
  • 12+ Hours

    Votes: 388 44.0%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 29 3.3%

  • Total voters
    882

1Bigfish

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9 hours total, including a 1 hour ramp up and a 1 hour ramp down. Full power for 6 of those hours, but my mixed reef is mostly LPS and softies.
Same..LPS and zoa tank. 3 x g5 blues on the lps program with a total of 9 hours
 

Operation Philo Beddoe

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Some of y'all have grumpy fish because they never get enough down time and the others have too much energy because they don't get enough day light! HA! When it comes to lighting your reef tank what is a good balance of time, on and off, for the fish and the coral? Let's talk about it!

1. How long do you run your lights on your reef tank?

2. How long do you think is too long for the lights to be on?


image via goldy.singh.aquagold and Orphek
OR3_LED_Bars_reef_tank.jpg
12 hours but a long ramp down to actinic for my evening pleasure
 

Foggy Pirate

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Have a AI Prime 16Hd over a 13 gallon tank. Any more than 8 hours I see large spike in hair algae. Corals still open and growing and happy. Hammer, Duncan, candy cane
 

Drewbacca

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I accidently left my 2 kessil 360s on 90gal on overnight (24hrs) the other day ... fell asleep after turning to manual all blue / 5% intensity for cleaning right before they were scheduled to go out..was wondering the negative effects of this.
Normally its 8 hours of peak lighting with a 1hour up & down in the middle to a tiny 5% extra peak for midday.
1 hour dim on each side overall..and once dimmed to lowest setting.. a 1 hour hold there. ( all blue 5% intensity ...) so 12 total..but 2 barely on.
However I just found out with par meter it's severely underlit having never gone above
60% intensity , so I have some coral moving to do before slowly increasing.. plus I think I should make a video on the unique lighting scenerio that occurs with euro-braced tanks & pendants. The brace perfectly blocks the crossover of one light under the hotspot of the opposite side, which not only evens it out but makes the highest point in the center where they DO cross..the hottest point in the whole tank.
Diagram ends up looking like center point lighting with very even distribution and the slightest hotspot in the middle.
 

Dana Riddle

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Lighting duration really depends upon light intensity. If you're blasting a coral with PPFD than induces chronic photoinhibition (where damage to the photosynthetic apparatus occurs or oxygen radicals damage coral tissue and energy that could be dedicated to growth, reproduction, etc. is spent on repair of damage) then even a short period of time is too much. On the other hand, if light intensity is not sufficient to exceed the Compensation Point, then a long photoperiod is not enough. The 'trick' is to find a compromise and this is something along the line of PPFD around 150-300 for *many* corals. With this light intensity, a natural photoperiod of around 12 hours is good enough.
 

Sarcazian

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I guess I need to re-evaluate my lighting schedule. My XR15 G5 Blue app told me to run AB+ from 8AM till 5PM and I guess I trusted it... even though I felt it was super short.

The XR15 is on an EVO 13.5.
 

210 Reef Tank

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Some of y'all have grumpy fish because they never get enough down time and the others have too much energy because they don't get enough day light! HA! When it comes to lighting your reef tank what is a good balance of time, on and off, for the fish and the coral? Let's talk about it!

1. How long do you run your lights on your reef tank?

2. How long do you think is too long for the lights to be on?


image via goldy.singh.aquagold and Orphek
OR3_LED_Bars_reef_tank.jpg
I run mine a total of 12 hours with a ramp up before and after.
 

mindme

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8am to 10pm, ramping up and down both sides.

That's close to the number of hours they would get outside, but the intensity would vary. So I figure I'll do the same thing.
 

Buckster

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ramp up and down along with normal operating intensities and colors are over 13 hours. Why did I vote 11+?
 

rknapp

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12 hr schedule, 11am-11pm. 4 hr ramp up, 4 hr max, 4 hr ramp down. Ramp up is steep for hour 1, then more gradual for next 3 to max. Ramp down is the opposite.
 

Gup

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Lights are always set 8 a.m. on an 8:000pm off. But seasonal changes of outside light filtering in in the living room make their own adjustment. When the television is on later on some nights, awake time is variable
 

Jonas Bergkvist

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Not sure if you mean the total "lights-on" periode? Does it even count with the moonlight time? Does coral grow in the moonlight phase?

Anyway, i have set my sunrise at 08:00am and the ramp-up time i guess it's an hour or something. The sunset is at 05:00pm, same ramp-down time. And after that there is moonlight set for 4 hours. So 9 hours of intense light, and in total it is 13 hours of light. It sounds quiet a lot actually :)

I don't have much stony corals, only 3 LPS (brains) and one SPS birds nest. Got a bunch of cool soft corals though, but i heard they are not so picky with light. They all seem ok i guess, especially the soft ones, but stonies could do much better with a higher pH i think.
 

PhreeByrd

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Nowadays, with programmable LED lighting, there really is no definite "on" or "off" time. I think all of us with modern LED lighting use a ramped schedule, so the light level is constantly changing throughout the day.

That said, since all of my reef inhabitants originate in tropical waters near the equator, I try to simulate the length of day and night at the equator as much as possible. Sunrise to sunset is 12 hours, but there are low, ramping light levels for about an hour before sunrise and after sunset.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I'm surprised that 12 h is the upper limit of the poll.

Most natural coral reefs are lit 12+ h a day for at least half the year.

I certainly voted other since I think the number is above 12.
 

Panama Brown

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I run a hybrid setup w/ 4 x XR15 Pros w/ 4 t5's. 12pm to 10 pm. Ramp up an hour, ramp down 2 hours. Run T5's from 2 to 6. Happy reefing!
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Rev you need to do a question of the day on quarantine no quarantine, if your website is lined in lead and can contain the blast.
 
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