All lights and "moonlight", do i keep moonlight on all night?

[HaveFishWillTravel]

" A few nights" will not show you anything. Find a setup you like and run it for a few months. Then make a minor change, and observe for a month or 2.

The fish, do not need lights at all. We spend all of this money on our lighting setups for coral health alone. The fish would do just fine with ambient daylight and no overhead lighting at all.

My advise is start with a setup that MOST mimics what nature does. In tropical areas, where most of our corals and fish originate, daylight and darkness do not vary much. Pretty much 11-12 hours of light and then dark.

This is curious to me…based upon your comment about 11 - 12 hours of light and then dark, I looked up the Great Barrier Reef and in fact right now, there is almost 10 hours of dark and 14 hours of light, if you include daylight, astronomical, nautical and twilight. I keep my lights ‘On’ for 9 hours, not 11 or 12 hours. Do you have your lights programmed for 11 or 12 hours per day? Just curious. I have done the same 9 hours with my freshwater. You are absolutely correct, the fish don’t really care, but the plants and the other animals need the light.

Great Barrier Reef

Sunrise and sunset times in Great Barrier Reef Marine park

Calculations of sunrise and sunset in Great Barrier Reef Marine park – Queensland – Australia for March 2026. Generic astronomy calculator to calculate times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset for many cities, with daylight saving time and time zones taken in account.

www.timeanddate.com