4 - 8 - 4 - 8 Lighting Cycles

[ZoWhat]

@Dana Riddle or whoever has knowledge of this.

Stumbled across some web articles that corals grow faster if subject to 4hrs light ON, 8hrs OFF, 4hrs ON, 8hrs OFF over a 24hr period.

Seems to be a hidden lil secret at "grow out" farms....

A couple of articles said....Most corals are "at capacity" absorbing light at 4hrs....meaning a 5th 6th etc photo period is diminishing returns

Layman's term.... coral absorb light during photo period, then grow to their structure during lights OUT. 4-8-4-8 is suppose to give you TWO growing periods within 24hrs.

Fact or fiction????

I have never seen this before tonight.

Im very intrigued what the Science is behind this (?)




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[Phildago]

It sounds like it could be plausible.

I wonder if anybody has a study on this

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

Well this is interesting!

 

[tehmadreefer]

Back in 2011

4 on 8 off light cycle

Was reading a book and the author suggests using a 4 on 8 off light cycle as one method of growing corals faster for propagation. Has anyone used this method and if so did you see positive/negative results? Thanks, Steve

www.reef2reef.com

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

Back in 2011

4 on 8 off light cycle

Was reading a book and the author suggests using a 4 on 8 off light cycle as one method of growing corals faster for propagation. Has anyone used this method and if so did you see positive/negative results? Thanks, Steve

www.reef2reef.com

I saw this post in that thread

4 on 8 off light cycle

what makes no sense to me is regardless 8 on 16 off it's the same as 4 on 8 off x2 in a 24 hr cycle...... :confused:

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Jaebster]

Well, that works around my work schedule. On at 6am off at 10am on at 6pm and off at 10pm.

 

[immortl]

Blast from the past, "posted from my Xoom using Tapatalk". That made me chuckle, I remember them.

The article linked in that thread makes sense to me and it seems one person posted back after 2 months and was still a fan.

The link in that thread didn't work for me but a google search for the paper came up with a near similar link that works.
PDF via google link Note: This is a link to the google cached copy of the PDF.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Probably more stuff on RC as well since it’s an old theory.

 

[immortl]

Hmmm, do any purpose built light controllers support this type of schedule? My bluefish doesn't seem to. Looks like I would have to go back to the old digital lamp controller.

 

[Pancake]

Blast from the past, "posted from my Xoom using Tapatalk". That made me chuckle, I remember them.

The article linked in that thread makes sense to me and it seems one person posted back after 2 months and was still a fan.

The link in that thread didn't work for me but a google search for the paper came up with a near similar link that works.
PDF via google link Note: This is a link to the google cached copy of the PDF.

Hi everyone, I’ve been running 6am-1pm on 1-5off and 5 to 9on and 9-6off for the last 8 months. Everything is going well but a little voice in the back of my head began to worry as I realized I was the only one doing this. So I decided to see if their was any detriment to this light schedule and low and behold I found you guys. Lol! My Tank is 10 month old. Param is 10.1 dkH, calc is 430, mag is 1520 based on redsea test kit with consistent results. I did 1 ICP test after 3 months of stable conditions and based on that, Red Sea test result of 430 adjusted to ICP is 403 for calc and Red Sea mag test of 1520 is 1258 on icp for my tank. Not sure who to trust so I just hold it stable, but at any rate I figure the range is sufficient. I regularly check phos with Hanna low range phosphate and get mostly .05 and .02 to .08 as outliers (goes low when I feed low and goes high when I clean sump). I am running AP700 mounted 7inches high on a 70 gallon tank 36x18x25 mainly because I can’t stand having any light wasted. Anyway I should just do the tank intro lol! Sorry for the tangent, and going back to the point of this thread, I just wanted to chime in and say that 8 months on this light schedule and so far things seem fine as I do get good zoa and paly growth and good coloration overall. SPS seem to grow and color as well. But what we really want to know is if this type of light schedule has definitive benefits or not and for that we all would need to run control tank experiment to measure any real results. For my part I can only say that I’m running this schedule because I didn’t want to pay peak hour electric bill, but it turned out to be good for me. A main concern I do have however is if the the 7 hour of light and 4 hour of rest might cause adverse affects on coral health since the quality of sleep might be bad. But then again after we sunbath on a tropical island, a 4 hour nap doesn’t seem bad at all. Happy New Years Everyone!

 

[kdino]

For the past 4 months I have been doing 6 on 6 off with good success. I also split the spectrum. 6 white, 6 blue. Little.more complex with my hydra 52s but I'm about to go iij into a meeting, I'll explain later

 

[Bluedore]

Following.

 

[Kevin Duprey]

Also following. This would fit in with my work schedule as well. Not sure how the fish would like it though...

 

[MichaelReefer]

The only reason this sounds odd is you would think as a living organism that lives off light, it would absorb as much as possible, which would mean it would do best being exposed as long as possible. No?

 

[ZoWhat]

The only reason this sounds odd is you would think as a living organism that lives off light, it would absorb as much as possible, which would mean it would do best being exposed as long as possible. No?

Scientific studies say a coral maxes out absording light !AT! 4hrs. The 5th 6th..blah blah hr over 4hrs is diminishing returns on growing zooxanthellae (Univ study)

Some have speculated that the only thing that benefits on the 5th 6th blahblah hr is algae (theory but not fact)

If you think about the Sun over a reef.... the coral is really only getting blasted for 4hrs with the Sun directly overhead.

All times before and after the 4hr blast, the Sun's PAR is pretty filtered out bc of its angle


.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Scientific studies say a coral maxes out absording light !AT! 4hrs. The 5th 6th..blah blah hr over 4hrs is diminishing returns on growing zooxanthellae (Univ study)

Some have speculated that the only thing that benefits on the 5th 6th blahblah hr is algae (theory but not fact)

If you think about the Sun over a reef.... the coral is really only getting blasted for 4hrs with the Sun directly overhead.

All times before and after the 4hr blast, the Sun's PAR is pretty filtered out bc of its angle


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BUT, we have tanks where our light is directly above them as long as we want them to be. So wouldn't they absorb longer than say, the "wild" where the sun is moving? Just playing devils advocate.

 

[ZoWhat]

BUT, we have tanks where our light is directly above them as long as we want them to be. So wouldn't they absorb longer than say, the "wild" where the sun is moving? Just playing devils advocate.

I dont know what to tell you other than the Univ Study concluded that a coral has absorbed the maximum amt of light it needs at 4hrs.

Im certainly not selling anyone on changing their lighting sched.

Im currently doing
Midnight to 6am OFF
6am to Noon ON
Noon to 6pm OFF
6pm to Midnight ON

So im practicing 6-6-6-6 light sched



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[The Aquatic Arsenal]

When everyone is running their split light schedules, do you have a ramp up/down as well?

 

[Pancake]

Scientific studies say a coral maxes out absording light !AT! 4hrs. The 5th 6th..blah blah hr over 4hrs is diminishing returns on growing zooxanthellae (Univ study)

Some have speculated that the only thing that benefits on the 5th 6th blahblah hr is algae (theory but not fact)

If you think about the Sun over a reef.... the coral is really only getting blasted for 4hrs with the Sun directly overhead.

All times before and after the 4hr blast, the Sun's PAR is pretty filtered out bc of its angle


.

One thing that I do observe is that 4 hours seem too short. I can tell because my first photo period is 7 hours and the second is 4 hours. The 4 hour photo period ramps up to 40% just the same as my 7 hour photo period. I notice that in order for the corals to get into their full groove, they need more than 4 hours. I also observe that even for my 7 hour photo period I do not see full expansion until the 5th hour even though that is past the peak par. A full 8 hours seems to be what the corals are telling me to become fully expanded, at least at my current par settings. Perhaps as times goes on and I increase my par I can observe corals that have adapted to higher par and shorter photoperiod.

 

[Pancake]

Also following. This would fit in with my work schedule as well. Not sure how the fish would like it though...

my fish seem to like it just fine. My clown is enamored with the nems so it acts the same.... well some of the nems close up so it becomes homeless for about an hour. Lol. I have 6 chromis and they hide because that’s what they do when lights are off. The mandarin is completely unaffected because it only goes to sleep when it’s pitch black.