Hello all! New to R2R, i have been reading a lot the last couple days and there is so much great info on here. Have a 75 gallon tank, not a whole lot in there. Got new lights for it and they should be in tomorrow. I seem to not have my "light schedule" set properly. I've been running my blues all night, and then putting the whites on in the morning around 7 am. Running blues and whites all day until about 7-8 pm and back to the blues all night. I feel like I am missing something. Should there be a point in time where the lights are completely off? Someone please help. First stab at salt and I'm failing miserably [emoji22]
Lighting question.. HELP! :)
- Thread starter miller16
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Welcome to R2R.
I dont call it fail, I call it learning,
Me I like to have a no light at night. Other run low moon light.
I run led. I ramp the blues, add whites and ramp. peak then ramp down white, ramp down blues, then night night tank.
I have a stupid long lighting period compared to most. I call it summer in Fiji. My peak is only 8hrs.
Okay so I should be shutting all the lights off for a good period of time at night ? The new lighting is dimmable LEDs which would make the process a bit easier, but the lighting we have now is literally white on/off blue on/off or completely off so it doesn't give me much in the way of turning up/down the brightness. How long would you say your lights are completely off for ?
my lights run 6am to 10 pm. so 8 hr night. IMO corals like down time. some actually feed only at night. Ie night time plankton in the ocean.
On an on off system id go blues,white blues, blues, night. Id guage that on when your home and want to see the tank.
and fwiw id also look at a par or lux meter to set the new leds as well. itll help the transition to new light and avoid over or under lighting.
yup. Poke around and look at what others do too. Make sure you chime in and ask questions. There's a lot of good folks here!
LOl, there a few of those here. not many, but it does keep you on your toes.
mcarroll
10K Club member
I think your feeling is coming from overthinking it. Thankfully, unlike some aspects of light and lighting, light scheduling isn't too complicated.
Consider first that you are emulating, as best you can, a tropical day.
While it varies a tiny amount there, basically that means about 12 hours of daylight all year long.
Your current light can't do a sunrise/sunset simulation, so you need the concept of "peak sun hours". (Google-able term.)
Assuming your light was equal to sunlight in intensity – about 100,000 lux or 2000 PAR – you'd only need about 5 or 6 hours of "ON time" to give your corals an equivalent of a full day's sun. You can figure that 5 hour number up for a lower-power light fixture – most commercial fixtures are about 50% of the intensity of sunlight at noon, or about 50,000 lux or 1000 PAR. Don't guess though, measure with a meter.
You can add any difference back to your light schedule like this:
5 hours + [5 hours * 50%] = 7.5 hours.
There is no requirement that they get a "full sun" day – corals live all the way down to where there's almost no light and can do well with as little as 10,000 lux (200 PAR) or even less. So don't take this as a call for "more is better" – it's just a guideline or starting point for your tank.
For a fixture with sunrise/sunset capability, you can give about 30 minutes each for sunrise and sun set, and you can give from one to a few hours to peak light. The rest of the time is ramping between peak light and sunrise or sunset. 12 hours total.
+1
The only way to call it a fail is to be in too big a hurry to stop, learn and change directions.
"Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank." is the #1 rule of the hobby.....that almost nobody adheres to. (In spite of @Diesel and @saltyfilmfolks tireless work promoting the idea!)
@miller16 Any time you find yourself going slower or learning more "lessons" like this one that the average reefer you see online – stop and pat yourself on the back.
Lots of folks rush to The End where their tank is fully stocked and (having rushed) they begin learning their lessons there.....very much the hard way since all the lessons are on top of each other and hard to understand at that point, often in the form of a tank crash. It's very hard to learn much from a tank crash, except that you screwed up. Not too helpful going forward.
+1
I wouldn't make any lighting change without at least a lux meter in-hand. A PAR meter is nice if you can afford one, though personally (having only a lux meter, myself) I think I'd still have both since having it around for a while I actually use the lux meter quite a bit for non-photosynthesis-related stuff.
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FishGuyBri
Active Member
I haven't been on R2R that long but let me tell you - i've NEVER been made to feel trolled or negative on here - It's been a haven of great information as long as you browse through many different opinions and ultimately settle on your own. I love it on here!
