Light ramping no benefit?

[A. grandis]

While would be valid to choose any artificial light for a reef tank, proper lighting application is what we should aim for.
This thread has some good info on lighting in general. The thread is about metal halides, but the videos are great for everyone! Watch those videos:

Tullio Dell Aquila & Dr. Sanjay's views ( a thread for METAL HALIDE lovers)

I've been very busy lately with basically no time to post, but just had to open this thread. Title says it all... yes, this thread is to talk about metal halides! The maker of a video called "Are Metal Halides Making a Comeback? "New" Review of an "Old" Product" (linked bellow), Mr. Keith...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[atoll]

I ramp up for 4 hours, steady for 4 hours, and down for 4 hours. I do this only because it seems to relate to my Maldives experience where I tried to observe every detail

That's interesting however, did you observe such on the surface as on the beach or at a few meters depth? I suspect at the surface. Why do I suspect that? Well, for the first few hours of daylight little light breaks the surface and is slimply bunched off the waters surface.

I am told that the rise from darkness to quite light happens over a short period of time. I only ramp for an hour each side of full illumination. A diver told me the above but I have read similar. I have dived but never at dawn or sunset so can't confirm myself.

I dived the Red sea but never early morning. However, the nearer you get to the equator the quicker light goes from bright to dark and vice versa. My wife has been to Kenya and says darkness comes very very quickly she says like somebody just switch the lights out lol.

Any divers care to comment on their experience at dawn or evening sun down?

 

[7hogwarts]

IMO While we(as humans) may not observe a whole lot of direct effect on lighting dark to full on. I know that if I am in a dark room and bright lights are turned on, my eyes hurt. It is very uncomfortable.
Now going forward, fish have eyes and I suspect the same for them.
While corals do not have eyes, most do require light. Is a sudden burst of light bothering them for a bit? I think potentially it may bother them.
I also have serpent starfish in my systems. They have no eyes, but are quite sensitive to lights and dash for cover almost immediately. So they are affected. (as are many other creatures)
There is so much unknown in our hobby that I feel that (as we should) do our best to mimic nature. I ramp my lights up and down.

 

[Bando]

I have no personal experience or access to any peer-reviewed studies on the subject. However, it is my perspective that keeping a reef tank should always be as close to the natural environment as possible. So although ramp up/down may have no effect on the coral - I believe it is unnatural not to have a ramp up/down.

 

[CJO]

Didn't Dana Riddle do some research in corals and found that they performed most of their photosynthesis in the morning and evening hours (which would be similar to the artificial ramping in our discussion)?

From memory, it may be because of photoinhibition during the mid-day period, so the discussion might depend on your peak PAR values in your aquarium.

 

[atoll]

@Dana Riddle
Perhaps you could add your thoughts and experiences to this subject please.

 

[Justin Aretz]

@Dana Riddle
Perhaps you could add your thoughts and experiences to this subject please.

My thoughts exactly - @Dana Riddle may have better than anecdotal info or opinion here.

My experience based opinion here is that ramping is completely unnecessary to the health of acropora corals.

 

[McPuff]

I use the ramp functionality because I like it. I highly doubt it matters to the coral health/color/etc. Fish behavior is a small "concern" of mine and I can definitely see them switch behavior during dark, dawn, daylight, and dusk. It's interesting for me to watch this so it's worth it.

Is all of this necessary? No, but we can argue what is necessary for 10 years straight. The point is that some of us like it and others don't see the point. It's the same for cloud cover, thunderstorms, etc. that many lights can offer.

 

[vanpire]

That's interesting however, did you observe such on the surface as on the beach or at a few meters depth? I suspect at the surface. Why do I suspect that? Well, for the first few hours of daylight little light breaks the surface and is slimply bunched off the waters surface.

I am told that the rise from darkness to quite light happens over a short period of time. I only ramp for an hour each side of full illumination. A diver told me the above but I have read similar. I have dived but never at dawn or sunset so can't confirm myself.

I dived the Red sea but never early morning. However, the nearer you get to the equator the quicker light goes from bright to dark and vice versa. My wife has been to Kenya and says darkness comes very very quickly she says like somebody just switch the lights out lol.

Any divers care to comment on their experience at dawn or evening sun down?

This is true. I dive the South Pacific a lot and it is sun up and sun down are very quick. Surprisingly quick. It takes about 30 minutes of normal day light to darkness. I learned this lesson the hard way paddling out in the ocean and didn't realize how fast the sun sets and was caught in the darkness rowing back.

Or you want to take pictures of the sunset and figure you have time to get to the beach before sunset, but it gets dark before you can get there.

Now, it isn't instant obviously but it seems like around 30 minutes or so.

 

[Marc2952]

I, too, have read that corals don't benefit from a ramp up and down phase. However, I think the fish benefit from it, which is only a personal experience; when I turn my lights off, all of them hide immediately.

This right here, i actually lost a flame wrasse due to lights going off without ramping down. He punctured his eye and caught a bacterial infection.

 

[atoll]

This is true. I dive the South Pacific a lot and it is sun up and sun down are very quick. Surprisingly quick. It takes about 30 minutes of normal day light to darkness. I learned this lesson the hard way paddling out in the ocean and didn't realize how fast the sun sets and was caught in the darkness rowing back.

Or you want to take pictures of the sunset and figure you have time to get to the beach before sunset, but it gets dark before you can get there.

Now, it isn't instant obviously but it seems like around 30 minutes or so.

However, seems it depends on how close you are to the equator, the closer the quicker darkness happens.

 

[vanpire]

It was pretty close to the equator in Bali, Malaysia, the Philippines, etc.

 

[atoll]

My question was solely about corals. I am sure some fish will get spooked by sudden on and off of lights esp if they are not use to such. It appears many do adapt to quick on and off of lights but do corals that is the thrust of my question.

 

[Thales]

That's interesting however, did you observe such on the surface as on the beach or at a few meters depth? I suspect at the surface. Why do I suspect that? Well, for the first few hours of daylight little light breaks the surface and is slimply bunched off the waters surface.

I am told that the rise from darkness to quite light happens over a short period of time. I only ramp for an hour each side of full illumination. A diver told me the above but I have read similar. I have dived but never at dawn or sunset so can't confirm myself.

I dived the Red sea but never early morning. However, the nearer you get to the equator the quicker light goes from bright to dark and vice versa. My wife has been to Kenya and says darkness comes very very quickly she says like somebody just switch the lights out lol.

Any divers care to comment on their experience at dawn or evening sun down?

Hi. I have dived a lot at dusk and dawn, and the light does not come on or off like a switch, rather it is very much like what we experience on land. I am not sure what you mean about light being bunch at the waters surface, but I have never seen anything like that happen.
In equatorial regions the sunset and sunrise seems fast, but they are not instant.

 

[atoll]

Hi. I have dived a lot at dusk and dawn, and the light does not come on or off like a switch, rather it is very much like what we experience on land. I am not sure what you mean about light being bunch at the waters surface, but I have never seen anything like that happen.
In equatorial regions the sunset and sunrise seems fast, but they are not instant.

From my research the light on the equator goes dark in 30mins (my wife must think it seemed that fast but is adamant it was quicker lol ). However with regards to the reef you need to factor in the fact light hardly penetrates the water below a certain angle and is bounced off the surface perhaps further speeding up the light to darkness time.

 

[User1]

Any divers care to comment on their experience at dawn or evening sun down?

Interesting question. Depending on the depth our dive log or duration may not be enough to notice. Then there is the surface interval before next jump in. Out in the Northern cooler waters of California I will say that light does vary in the early morning. I typically do early morning dives because it can have the best visibility. The challenge is that with early morning dives they are also usually the deeper of the two or three that day.

I'm talking 65 to 115 feet in my case. Believe it or not at 0600 or so in November I do not need any self powered light. There is enough at that depth. How that relates to your question though pass by me. I mean you can see a change from start to end but is that equal to ramp up, down, etc? Don't know.

I also don't know how much light is reflected off the surface or the power of it punching through to depth. I have seen shade when swimming under a bait ball or krill swarm. Maybe other divers can chime in and offer more.

Edit: I will also say it is not on/off. That is clear.

 

[YankeeTankee]

Whatever effect it has, it's miniscule. As others have mentioned MHs do not ramp and we all know how well they grow coral. I do however like the idea of a light taper up/down for my own viewing pleasure.

 

[RC Corals]

Ramping is primarily for the consumers pleasure, and a marketing tech tool that allows people to fiddle, and feel like their doing something directly to impact the success of their tank.

Then... they promptly all go and find the AB+ settings and schedule that everyone says is "The Best" and use that... because everyone says it's "The Best".

Is it visually pleasing and possibly convenient? Yup.
Is it necessary? Nope.
Do people convince themselves Unecessary things are Necessary to convince themselves more expensive is better? Absolutely.

 

[Thales]

From my research the light on the equator goes dark in 30mins (my wife must think it seemed that fast but is adamant it was quicker lol ). However with regards to the reef you need to factor in the fact light hardly penetrates the water below a certain angle and is bounced off the surface perhaps further speeding up the light to darkness time.

Sure, but not all of it is bounced, the the light under water still goes up or down at dawn/dusk just like out of the water. It doesn't just pop on. Dawn/dusk may be faster on the equator, but it isn't instant, it still ramps up or down

 

[Thales]

Whatever effect it has, it's miniscule. As others have mentioned MHs do not ramp and we all know how well they grow coral. I do however like the idea of a light taper up/down for my own viewing pleasure.

The 30 second ramp was was enough to not startle my fish with MH. LED's that pop on did startle them. We talked about this a lot in the early 2000's