Ambient Light Question - Night Shifters

[redstorm6]

I'm sure we have some third shift workers like me on this forum.

My question to everyone is when you set your lights to run opposite the natural daytime rhythm do you do anything to black out the room? Do you let it ride naturally?

I ask this because I have my tank lights cutting on @ 8pm and off @ 3am. I've noticed when I go in the tank room during the day, the lighting is subdued because I have window blinds, but some corals are almost fully out.

Do you all think this even matters? The darkness of my fish tank room during the day you could probably barely read a book without outside lighting. I'm curious what other reefers are or aren't doing that are in a similar situation.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Most corals will be fully out to feed at nighttime so no anomaly there.

 

[King Turkey]

when I did tat shift my room was pretty bright during the day so I made a cardboard shield that went in front of the tank to easily put up then move away as I saw fit. I do not know if it was needed or not I was just being ocd I think

 

[Smarkow]

Granted I’m only on 3rd shift for months at a time, so I still have my reef on a relatively normal schedule, but I set sunrise to 9am and sunset to 9pm with a 2h 1% all blue phase from 9pm to 11pm.

So this way when on 3rd shift I come home to the sunrise phase and then go to bed. When not on 3rd shift I come home to 2h of daylight and then 2h of low blues. It seems to work

 

[Seanislav]

I am a first shifter, but my lights come up at about 2pm and are off fully at midnight. That's just me being selfish in wanting to have time in the evenings to enjoy my reef. The tank does get natural daylight, but no direct sun, and I've noted no ill effects in the two years the system's been running.