How long is too long, to run your lights?

[George's reef]

A very simple answer goes like this. Every tank is different. What works for you, might not work for me. If your tank inhabitants are happy then there would be no reason to believe your lighting schedule is wrong. In the end we are striving for stability and this goes for our lighting as well. Corals and fish will adjust to your lighting schedule.

A case to back this up is what happened with my dads tank not too long ago. He decided to change up his lighting schedule and intensity. Prior to doing this his tank was doing very well. His corals did not adjust well to the lighting change and a few pieces started to wither away. He went back to his original schedule and they all came back.

That being said, I think your lighting schedule is close to normal. Do you have a ramp time, or is it 100% right from the get go? I start my ramping at 8am. It's 100% intensity from 12-6 and then begins to ramp down until lights out at 10pm.

I have the exact same schedule

 

[Mikeltee]

They can only utilize about 10 hours and many of my corals recede after 10 like gonies and torches. I run 12 for viewing purposes. At one point I ran moon lights and it severely hurt the tank... In my experience 12 is the limit.

 

[Fredm]

Hello everyone, we often read a setting of 9h total if you use a lot of light and 12h if you're in a rather low light range.... But if you have SPS, or possibly a mixed tank with SPS, what does low light mean? If you're aiming for 300 PAR for SPS, is that a little or a lot? Is 350-400 a lot? Is 200 a little? I'm talking about SPS. Could you enlighten me?

 

[Fredm]

I run a schedule that mimics the intensity of nature. Low in the morning ramping to full by lunch and then ramping down to off by dusk. Low intensity blues until 9. I even programmed clouds to change things up.

Grow light in the sump 24/7 for the macro.

Hello Douglas,

Are you doing a simulation like a solar curve? I'm interested because in the past I obtained very good results this way with the settings that came with the Evergrow 2080, and then I went back to more "classic" settings with the recent ramps. If you use a curve, could you please share a photo or the setting used and do you know the PAR reached at the highest point?

Thanks