Does your lighting mimic natural sunlight timings?

[Goodersgold]

Whilst I appreciate that "what works for me" may not necessarily work for you, but I am curious to know how people programme their lighting schedules. I'm running the Red Sea LED50 over my Max Nano at the suggested height and I'm loosing soft corals, my water parameters are good and I test regularly so I think its due to too much light, what hadn't occurred to me was the dose of light I am giving, my LFS advised that I should run the blue at 70% and whites around 20%, but for how long...yes I know the 12 hour cycle, ramp up ramp down etc, but surely that's not what happens on a real reef? The sun's intensity is gradual and varied. Previously my schedule was light on at 11am 1 hour ramp up to 70%, ramp down starting at 7pm for 1 hour. This gives 8 hours of 70% intensity, I just think this is too much light so, I'm going to try this, the corals would be exposed to higher PAR levels for around 3 hours within a period of 5 hours at 50%.

Yesterday I brought the Photone app to give me some idea of PAR levels at the water surface, @ 60% blue 17% white the PAR was around 300. Whilst I do appreciate that the app is not 100% accurate, it gives me some idea of what's going on. I do plan to rent a PAR meter soon. I would I'd be interested in what you think.

 

[Timfish]

Due to reflection of light when the sun is at an angle reefs only experience intense light for a small part of the day while the majority is much dimmer. You may find this article by Dana Riddle helpful

Imitating Natural Light Quality, Intensity, and Dosage in a Reef Aquarium – Do We Really Want To?

When it comes to reef aquariums, Mother Nature has always been the de facto benchmark aquarists aspire towards. Dana investigates in great detail the quality and quantity of light over natural reefs in order to lay the groundwork to answer the age-old question: what is the best light for...

reefs.com