Just between friends - question re lighting

[Slarti]

Thought it to be a silly question but because I am amongst friends I thought I will ask it anyway. Done no search so apologies if this has been asked and answered...

I have an Radion XR15w Pro light on my tank that currently is set to run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the night and lunar phase settings on. Thing is during the week I generally only get home at 6 p.m. so best I see may be a slightly blue tinge or more often than not a dark tank. So the question, can I and if I do, what will be the impact of moving the cycle to only start at say 12 p.m. and finishing at 7 p.m. or better start at 1 p.m. and finish at 8 p.m. The later start due to the phasing out starting roughly and hour before shut down i.e. a 7 p.m. stop the light starts to fade at 6 p.m. That gives me some time to feed the fish and at least look at the tank during the week as well.

And whilst I am on it, the light is on a 29 g tank and was wondering at what intensity people with something similar is running their lights. Also, I am just running one of the standard programs from Ecosmart currently, anyone with some nifty changes they made to the program?

Enough questions for now, appreciate any feedback,

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Fwiw, my lights come on at 6am and off at 10pm. peak lighting is 10am to 6pm. blue only 6am to 7 am, 9pm to 10pm. 6am to 8 am dawn colors, 8pm to 9pm is dusk.
I set the intensity of each with a lux meter.

 

[cwalton00]

My lights run from 1 pm till 10 pm no ill effects here. It might cause your fish and corals to be confused but they will adjust to the schedule.

 

[Liquid360]

Yeah stability is the most important factor. When it comes on/goes dark isn't important. In a dark room you could adjust so it to be noon at midnight so long as it was consistent.

 

[Slarti]

OK thanks for the responses, I did think it will be fine but better to check. I will just adjust it accordingly and have a chat withe the fish and corals to explain the new daylight err savings time being implemented. Hopefully it will help with their confusion...;-)

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Fwiw, my lights come on at 6am and off at 10pm. peak lighting is 10am to 6pm. blue only 6am to 7 am, 9pm to 10pm. 6am to 8 am dawn colors, 8pm to 9pm is dusk.
I set the intensity of each with a lux meter.

Any issues with growth? I'd be interested in doing something similar...just figured everything needed more "dark time"

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Any issues with growth? I'd be interested in doing something similar...just figured everything needed more "dark time"

no not at all, in fact my growth is kinda stupid good right now esp with the stony corals.
Do you recall the How long is too long thread for light thread recently. I estimated(ok calculated guess) the DLI, so I have a long low intensity at the beginning an the end.
One thing a lot of folks forget is our eye adjusts really fast(thats why the bathroom is so bright in the middle of the night), so but using the lux meter and estimating the percentages to set the intensity of the ramp down levels.

So when my ruby reds are spawning in my "dusk mode'(lol), I can see them quite clearly at the beginning, but its not as bright as my bathroom. Its in that hour too that the corals begin to go to bed as well.

I will admit like all things reef, there's some trial and error. I did get "greening" on several of the acros initially. But to solve it I reduced only time of the blues during the peak photo period.
Were talking about that here https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/why-do-my-blue-corals-always-turn-green.302894/.

On a personal note, If i had more time and patience I could do a time lapse of some of my acros for a week and we could see actual growth in that time. My tri color valida just took off in growth and finally turned exactly Tri color too despite high Po4 and high nutrient levels from killing off my bryopsis.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

no not at all, in fact my growth is kinda stupid good right now esp with the stony corals.
Do you recall the How long is too long thread for light thread recently. I estimated(ok calculated guess) the DLI, so I have a long low intensity at the beginning an the end.
One thing a lot of folks forget is our eye adjusts really fast(thats why the bathroom is so bright in the middle of the night), so but using the lux meter and estimating the percentages to set the intensity of the ramp down levels.

So when my ruby reds are spawning in my "dusk mode'(lol), I can see them quite clearly at the beginning, but its not as bright as my bathroom. Its in that hour too that the corals begin to go to bed as well.

I will admit like all things reef, there's some trial and error. I did get "greening" on several of the acros initially. But to solve it I reduced only time of the blues during the peak photo period.
Were talking about that here https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/why-do-my-blue-corals-always-turn-green.302894/.

On a personal note, If i had more time and patience I could do a time lapse of some of my acros for a week and we could see actual growth in that time. My tri color valida just took off in growth and finally turned exactly Tri color too despite high Po4 and high nutrient levels from killing off my bryopsis.

Do you by any chance have a graph of what your lighting schedule looks like?

Here's what I'm running:

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Do you by any chance have a graph of what your lighting schedule looks like?

Here's what I'm running:

Umm, well I kinda did, but I threw out that note pad.;Oldman

K heres the other stupid thing. I have a Current orbit marine I fell in love with the royal blue AND 3 ai sols on the 55g. ;Wacky
The Orbit comes on first
6am blue 30min ramp full at 7
7am then whites 30min ramp
730 Ai sols begin blue ramp
8am Orbit at full Ai begin white ramp
At 8 its pretty close to the color it will be all day.

Now, during that time my tank is like 6 or 8 colors because of the mix and my back glass is not painted so the white wall behind it changes colors too.;Spiderman
(ai sol whites are Aqua, the back wall stays royal B and pink)

But in short, my peak photo period is only 6 hours.
my Current is really no light at all on that tank as its 8in above the water in the canopy.
All my ramps with the AI are a linear increase to the peak and decrease as well.
All my color ratios in the ai are a at a 1:1

in the 30g with the SBreeflight, its 3 channels and the strategy is the same. Curiously they are very close to the same color at the same time of day.

By keeping the linear ramps and the set photo periods it made it much easier to track and make changes if I needed to.