lighting schedule, if i fade can i go longer?

[Colin_T]

The other thing to do, which I forgot to put in my earlier post, is to ramp the light up about 25% per hour. So start off with each colour at 25%, increase it to 50% after an hour,. then 75% after another hour, and then 100% another hour after that. Reverse that after the lights have been on for 8-10 hours or however long they are on for.

If you get lots of algae, just reduce the intensity to 75-80% for a few weeks and see how the algae grows. You can also shorten the lighting time to 6-8 hours and see how it goes.

 

[itiwhetu]

I think that the only important thing is consistency, it actually doesn't matter as long as you do the same thing all the time, plants will adapt to what they have. But plants don't like changes.

 

[adhdan]

If the lights were for marine they will be about 1000 kelvin for the coral. 6500 kelvin is optimal for freshwater plants so you'll need 65% intensity or less to avoid algae.

im guessing you meant 10 000 kelvin, the coralcare light has 2 channels of LED's that can be controlled, below is the spectrum of the coralcare and for comparison a picture of the spectrums of other types of lights

 

[itiwhetu]

Our tanks are full of variables, light is one thing we can control. I would suggest that you don't play with it too much otherwise you may find that you are chasing your tail.