Light saturation peak hours?

[LEGACYLINE]

I have been reading articles from Dana riddle lately and have a few questions on peak lighting hours I use t5 lighting ( ATI dimmable) my photo period is 10 hours but only 2 of those hours are at 100% the rest is ramping up or down ..par levels at peak hours are 350 up top 200 bottom give or take a little user error ..would 8 hours be better for growth at a steady par at those levels ? or would only a couple hours at that par level and ramping up and down be better having different par levels through the day? So basically do the corals photosythesise the full 8 hours at 100-250 par or do they shut down half the day once par reaches that point?

 

[jda]

The easy answer is: it depends. More light for less time can be as good as less light for more time. It depends on what you are keeping... each coral will max out differently than another. There are some rough guesses where some coral max out, but there are plenty of reefers that disagree with these assessments. Then, you get into "just enough" or "thriving" argument. For example, I think that 8 hours at 100 PAR would be Ok for most LPS to do OK, 10 hours at 250 would be more of a thriving level. 10-11 hours of 250+ is the minimum for my acropora and I like to get all of them 400+ for 10 hours.

I have never seen anything that ramping is for anything other than the reefer.

 

[LEGACYLINE]

Thanks yeah I'm thinking about switching back to just 10 hour full lighting I've been doing 2 hours of peak lighting and have not seen much growth since doing that so I think they would enjoy a little more light