Ramping up vs on and off lighting

saltlife97 · Jul 26, 2022

Do you think it’s better to have lights mimic the ocean with light slowly dimming off/on or having the light just suddenly tune off/on

I’m using dimming but I see how much my corals start to get smaller when the lights are dinning and I just imagin growth is stunted during those periods?
I run David saxbys ai prime schedule on two Hydra 32 HD And tank does great I’m just wondering about other opinions

Aspect · Jul 26, 2022

I use one light that has a ramp up and ramp down that comes on an hour before and after my Vipars turn on and off, so the fish have a more natural light cycle while also getting that light that my corals need.

bobnicaragua · Jul 26, 2022

Fish tend to freak out when the lights go out all at once. I don’t think the corals care, ramping is a relatively new thing.

mdb_talon · Jul 26, 2022

I dont know that there is any accepted answer that can tell us scientifically that one is better than the other. This is not really what you are asking but related ao will share what I remember reading about photoperiods. I have read studies that measured total photoperiod and impact on growth and from what i remember none that i have seen showed any increase in growth by extending the photoperiod beyond 8 hours(i think in the studies i saw it was a constant light level for that period). One of the studies only compared 8/16/24 hour photoperiods and saw no difference between the 8 and 16 hour periods. Those in the 24 hour photoperiod died within a few months. Of course these studies usually just use a single type of coral so even with the research it is hard to extrapolate and say it is true for all coral.

I know thats not exactly what you are asking, but it is part of what makes me GUESS that generally as long as you are hitting that maximum amount of time that coral are going to benefit from the light it probably dont matter much if you have ramp up/down that are prior to or after that. I would like to see that study though.

For now I use ramp up/down still, but mostly for my viewing pleasure though