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

[JKBrown]

Using 3 MarsAqua 165 watt over 110 gallon tank.
Blue runs 7 am to 11 PM (16 hrs)
White runs 2 pm to 9 pm (7 hrs)

 

[reefsaver]

Run T4s with radions. The radions are on from 8:30 to 7:30pm with program ram-ups the T4s are on for 3 1/2 hours mid day.
try to mimic life near the equator.
I read in another post that there’s published literature that says corals benefit from an intense three hour light cycle. Is there any back up to this - could not find the article

The Zooxanthellae present in most Corals produce a massive percentage of the Corals food I think and I kind of draw the analogy to plants in that Zooxanthellae are photosynthesizers and produce food for the coral through photosynthesis, in turn the coral grows. I believe if you provide the coral with the perfect lighting and spectrum to have the Zooxanthella thrive you could have dramatic results. What interested me most about the hobby to begin with is the lighting people use to grow coral because it's way different to say a metal halide or HPS light which are commonly used in horticulture to grow plants. It still doesn't make sense to me that nobody uses them for the Marine Aquarium hobby to grow Coral if everyone uses them to grow plants? I assume for power or budgeting reasons but I don't think any lighting mimics natural light better than a combination of Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium lights, it is literally a perfect imitation of natural light with the perfect combination and it's comparably as expensive as regular Reef lighting and way cheaper than any pro stuff like Radeon.
Sorry to answer your question with a vague butt answer and more questions lol

 

[ClownSchool]

I’m not sure if I’m hurting my soft corals with the ramp up/down lighting in my AIO Biocube 16.
As the transition hits, my Kenya Tree and GSP both draw into themselves fairly quickly. The only thing I effected seems to be my small zoa frag.
the Kenya stays dropped and drawn in the entire night cycle and the GSP can take hours to come out under the blue lights.
mid that normal?
7:30am to 7:30pm daytime
30 minute ramp 7am and 7:30pm
Blue/night 8pm to 7:00am

should I overlap/change these times?

 

[FishStixx2]

Daddy must get up early and go to bed early too!

Alarm goes off at 442am for me. At work by 530am

 

[AntFarm]

Right now running my lights a bit shorter to handle some algae issues.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

I run three AI hydra 52's in a sunlight-free basement. The lights turn on at 8:30 AM and ramp up until 1:00 PM, where they stay at max until 4:00 PM and ramp down until 10:30 PM. SO in total I run 14 hours per day. Fish are full of energy and coral growth is great, though I won't entirely attribute either to lighting.

 

[AVVITT]

Blues on at 13:30, whites on at 14:30 then off at 22:30 and blues at 23:30
Could I run them for longer then looking at others on here?

 

[EricTheRed]

I run this same setup of lights.V4/bars. I’m a fan of their lights and have seen good results. For my photo period, I run 11 hours. Ramp up/down.

would that be a 1hr ramp up then 1hr ramp down?

 

[ScottR]

would that be a 1hr ramp up then 1hr ramp down?

Basically. From what I recall, it’s a quick ramp up and slow ramp down.

 

[dru312]

I run this same setup of lights.V4/bars. I’m a fan of their lights and have seen good results. For my photo period, I run 11 hours. Ramp up/down.

I currently run 5 bars (for the last 6 months instead of the HO/LED combo) and I'm very pleased with amazing results.

 

[Suesea]

Ok so what is the right answer? Maybe it's what ever works for your tank inhabitants and you of course

 

[Rob K]

13 hours
nature sez

Palau is a magical place to dive.

 

[sp1187]

Palau is a magical place to dive.

bucket list I will never check off.

 

[R33fDaddy]

I run 12 total hours, which includes a two hour ramp up and a two hour ramp down.

 

[Cpc83]

It all depends on what type of tank you have imo. If your corals are normally in deeper water then less of a run time is needed if you designed your tank around a shallow water reef then you need to mimic the hours of daylight ‍

 

[nitro500]

With my OCD I have to flip the lights on/off 7 times every time I walked by the tank

......or my fish will die

Disco party!

 

[Eric Miller]

I run from 9:00 am to 11:00pm

 

[Frostblitz20]

i perfer to try to mimic the day cycle starts to slowly come on around 7 and dies out around 6PM slowly ramping up/down.

 

[kingjames_dc5]

I run mine for 13 hrs with long ramp up/down. With dips in main intensity to simulate clouds. No issues so far.

 

[ClownSchool]

I run a cheap, weird lighting system. I use a Fluval marine LED bar on a 13 hour managed schedule with a six hour peak. In addition, I run a second Marineland *pro* LED bar that isn’t on a managed schedule running ten peak hours of blue and six hours of peak white.
Ironically, I’m picking up a par meter later today. I’ll update this to let you all know how it works.