How long do you keep your lights on?

Nathan2585 · Jul 7, 2014

I am starting my aquarium up this weekend and going to let it cycle but curious how long are your light cycles on and what times usually? Does it matter when you have them on? I would rather it be in the evening when I get off work so I could see them just not sure how long. I have metal halide lighting which I am going to switch to led soon.

flint · Jul 7, 2014

I would cycle the tank with the lights off.When you are cycling your tank it has lots of nutrients.So algae will grow fast.Thats not what we want. I hope this helps.

gacolt · Jul 7, 2014

i keep my lights on 6 1/2 years a day,there metal halides.the lights turn on at 3pm.

NobleSun27 · Jul 7, 2014

I run my lights from 10am to 10pm then the moonlight till 2am. I get home late and like to see my tank also. I have a 6 bulb over my 75 gallon, I have 3 lights come on at 10 am then at 12 my other 3 lights come on and then at 8pm I have 3 lights turn off and the other 3 turn off at 10pm. hope this helps

NanaReefer · Jul 8, 2014

I run my LED's for 10hrs. Ramping up/down from 9:30am till 7:30pm. Then my 2x 460nm blues (Lunars) @20% from 7:30pm till 11:00pm.

Jc_ellis · Jul 8, 2014

I run my LEDs for 11 hrs a day, 10am to 9pm, then a night/lunar cycle until midnight

Reefing Madness · Jul 8, 2014

I run LEDs 8 hours a day.

revhtree · Jul 8, 2014

10hrs or so.

Reefer831 · Jul 8, 2014

I run 2 reefbright for 2hrs then 2 t5s turn on for one...then all the lights (8 t5s and 2 reefbrights) come on for 6...then back to 2 T5s and 2 reefbrights for 1 hr...then to 2 reefbights for 2hr...so a total of 12hrs...4 hrs out of the 12 are just 2 reefbrights though...only 6hrs of full light

Scubafrog · Jul 8, 2014

Thanks for asking this question! I was wondering the same about lighting especially with the Coralife Biocube.

This is what I was thinking of running:

(1 hr) Actinic Blue Light
(8 hr) 10K Light
(1 hr) Actinic Blue Light

Does this sound about right or am I way off?

acox · Jul 8, 2014

Whow good question, I'm new also & have been running my led 4 hours daylight, 4 hours moonlight. Was getting some green algae growing was told by a friend my lights were on to long so that's why I cut them way back from 8 day, 8 moon. I still get some green algae but not as much, to get rid of the algae it will normally disappear by shutting off my lights for 3 days.

joekool · Jul 8, 2014

I run three custom 155e reef radiance at 12hours each on blue channel and 10 on white channels with added 480nm blues in white channel. Each light and comes on 30min after the first and same for off. There is an hour of blue channel only one hour before and after whites channels per light.

Too2short · Jul 8, 2014

I run HOT5's. Actinics run from 1100 to 830. My day bulbs run from about 1215 to 740. I was running 12hr days, but had a massive hair algae outbreak once. So I slowly scaled it back in 15min increments down to what im running now. And by slowly scaling it back, I mean in a period of 4 months time. Hair algae slowly went away and I still get pretty good growth from my corals to this day only running 9 hrs.

Noob · Jul 8, 2014

i run mine from Noon till 10:30pm b/c i get home late at night, but it's really only what i would consider daylight for about 4hrs. it spends about 3hrs ramping up from 0% to about 60%, stays that way for about 4hrs, and then 3 1/2hrs ramping down to 0%. i'm running a Maxspect Razor.

tony.schmucker.52 · Jul 8, 2014

Scubafrog said:
Thanks for asking this question! I was wondering the same about lighting especially with the Coralife Biocube.

This is what I was thinking of running:

(1 hr) Actinic Blue Light
(8 hr) 10K Light
(1 hr) Actinic Blue Light

Does this sound about right or am I way off?

I have a biocube as well and run the actinics the same way, only keep everything on a bit longer. 11 hours all on.

Scubafrog · Jul 8, 2014

Thanks Tony.

Scubafrog · Jul 8, 2014

Do you keep the actinics on the whole time or just at the beginning and end (sunrise/sunset)? I have heard of some running the actinic concurrently with the 10K.

tony.schmucker.52 · Jul 8, 2014

I run both during the day. I don't like the color so I'm eventually switching to leds

ritter6788 · Jul 8, 2014

12 hours/day

exonn · Jul 9, 2014

Right now my cycle is:

11:30 RB led strip ON
12:00 2xT5 (blue + and actinic) ON
16:00 2x250w MH ON

20:30 2x250w MH OFF
21:00 2xT5 (blue + and actinic) OFF
22:00 RB led strip OFF

right now am reducing my MH time. It was 6 hrs before, but i have some green algae all over my sand, reducing photoperiod (not only MH) seems to help. Just few weeks ago it was total of 12 hrs.