How Long Should Lighting Be On For?

[timmystood]

Hi everyone!

Just one quick question about my newly setup tank!
I have a luminaire with 4x 24W T5 Bulbs (2 14000K Marine White bulbs and 2 Marine Blue actinic 420 bulbs)
I've been told it makes sense to run the moonlight 'marine blue bulbs' 1 hour before the white's come on and also 1 hour afterwards so as to not startle the fish too much and also to see the interesting creatures that come out at night!

What would you recommened? How long should the lights be on for?
There is some pieces of coral that have attached themselves to the LR, so I would like to keep them alive if possible that's why i'm interested to know how long the lights should be on for. Thank you very much.

Timmystood

 

[Mr Miagi]

Id go with whats suggested, the two actinics on an hour or so before your 14000K's, and run them (14000K's) for 10hrs, so your looking at 12 hours all up. I find all my corals are not sensitive to lights, my lights end up on and off at all hours because of my lack of timers (havnt fixed them yet :whislte: ).

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Hi everyone!

Just one quick question about my newly setup tank!
I have a luminaire with 4x 24W T5 Bulbs (2 14000K Marine White bulbs and 2 Marine Blue actinic 420 bulbs)
I've been told it makes sense to run the moonlight 'marine blue bulbs' 1 hour before the white's come on and also 1 hour afterwards so as to not startle the fish too much and also to see the interesting creatures that come out at night!

What would you recommened? How long should the lights be on for?
There is some pieces of coral that have attached themselves to the LR, so I would like to keep them alive if possible that's why i'm interested to know how long the lights should be on for. Thank you very much.

Timmystood

yeah I think that's right about the actinic's being on before and after the main lights. we don't do it though as we've not managed to get the lights all rigged up to a timer that works yet

we got for about 10 hrs with the main bulbs on, but that's with a metal halide, dunno if it'd be different with T5's?

what coral's are they? cos that's gonna affect how much lighting you need too. post a pic if you don't know (not that I'll know what it is but someone else will! lol)

 

[timmystood]

Can't really post pictures at the moment as the water is very cloudy where I switched the sand round last night. I've taken today off work so that I can build up enough RO Water to fill the tank as it is currently only about half full (my ceylon and LR are in the water) but Mr. Puff doesn't seem to mind. I did rinse the sand very well but even so it's clouded up the water. It is clearing quite fast though so should be ok for pictures later! I'll probably run the main lights for 11 hours a day and then the moonlights one hour either side.. thank you