Lights and Feeding Schedule

[KPH]

Hello all!

I looked around for a similar topic and couldn’t find any guidance. I have a couple of things i need help with. I work a fairly normal 8-5 job. With my commute, I’m away from home 10 or so hours a day. That’s the number of hours I’ve been suggested to keep my lights on. My question is how do you guys with normal office jobs keep your lights on for only 10 or so hours a day but also feed your fish. Currently i have my lights start at 6AM. They ramp up to sunrise by 6:15, sunrise for an hour, then ramp up to full sunlight by 7:30. I feed them right at 7:20 almost every morning. I don’t have the ramp down to sunset start until 5:30 so i can feed them again when I’m home. Is this adequate or are the lights on for too long? All in all the lights are on in some regard from 6am until 7pm. I don’t have the night mode set so it goes from sunset, ramp down, to off. I have some pretty active fish like lyretail anthias and i was told they really need to be fed at least twice a day, sometimes 3 if i can. I do Hikari frozen mysis for breakfast and NLS pellets at dinner.

Any advice you guys have for me here? Do i not need to feed twice a day and just shut the lights off way sooner? I don’t have lots of algae or anything. Just can’t seem to really kick the diatoms and it looks like I’m starting to get some cyano...

 

[Zer0]

You can always set your lights to turn on later in the day so when you get home you still have plenty of time to observe your tank before lights out. For example, way back when, I used to run my lights from 3PM - 11PM. I went to work at 7am and got home around 3ish, so that meant I still had the rest of the night to observe and take care of the tank.

Also, having the lights on from 6am to 7pm is a long time, even if you have no coral. Most people keep the photoperiod between 6-8 hours of peak light, with the ramp up and ramp down lengths varying from person to person I’ve seen. I like to run 9 hours total nowadays, 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down, 7 hours of peak photoperiod.

Though I would imagine if you have a FOWLR setup you could probably get away with longer photoperiods, but you might run in to algae issues.

 

[KPH]

You can always set your lights to turn on later in the day so when you get home you still have plenty of time to observe your tank before lights out. For example, way back when, I used to run my lights from 3PM - 11PM. I went to work at 7am and got home around 3ish, so that meant I still had the rest of the night to observe and take care of the tank.

Also, having the lights on from 6am to 7pm is a long time, even if you have no coral. Most people keep the photoperiod between 6-8 hours of peak light, with the ramp up and ramp down lengths varying from person to person I’ve seen. I like to run 9 hours total nowadays, 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down, 7 hours of peak photoperiod.

Though I would imagine if you have a FOWLR setup you could probably get away with longer photoperiods, but you might run in to algae issues.

I have a few corals. But i still feel like I’m playing with fire keeping the lights on so long. I have a current USA Orbit light set up and i can’t find how to have two different day light cycles.

 

[Zer0]

What do you mean two different daylight cycles? As in you can’t change the light cycle it’s currently set to? Or…?

 

[KPH]

Sorry. I misread your initial comment. So I can have the lights come on at 9 or 10 and leave them so they are on when I get home so I can unwind and observe/work. That may be the answer.

my only other issue is number of feeds through the day. As I said, I was advised that Anthias should be fed 2-3 times a day. Unless I kept the lights on for 13 hours I wouldn’t be able to do that.

 

[JayA]

I have a similar problem. I would like to feed the tank twice daily, 7am and 6pm to fit my work schedule. Obviously lights on for 12 hours seems not ideal, but also I feel badly turning lights back on at 6 (or a little later on a late day) to feed.

 

[MnFish1]

Hello all!

I looked around for a similar topic and couldn’t find any guidance. I have a couple of things i need help with. I work a fairly normal 8-5 job. With my commute, I’m away from home 10 or so hours a day. That’s the number of hours I’ve been suggested to keep my lights on. My question is how do you guys with normal office jobs keep your lights on for only 10 or so hours a day but also feed your fish. Currently i have my lights start at 6AM. They ramp up to sunrise by 6:15, sunrise for an hour, then ramp up to full sunlight by 7:30. I feed them right at 7:20 almost every morning. I don’t have the ramp down to sunset start until 5:30 so i can feed them again when I’m home. Is this adequate or are the lights on for too long? All in all the lights are on in some regard from 6am until 7pm. I don’t have the night mode set so it goes from sunset, ramp down, to off. I have some pretty active fish like lyretail anthias and i was told they really need to be fed at least twice a day, sometimes 3 if i can. I do Hikari frozen mysis for breakfast and NLS pellets at dinner.

Any advice you guys have for me here? Do i not need to feed twice a day and just shut the lights off way sooner? I don’t have lots of algae or anything. Just can’t seem to really kick the diatoms and it looks like I’m starting to get some cyano...

I feed my fish once a day. My lights start coming on at noon and off at 10. On the weekends I feed twice. My aquarium also faces a window so there is enough light to feed them even with the lights off if I wanted to. I might suggest to put your lights on when you’re home to enjoy the tank?

 

[LuizW13]

Why don't you get an auto feeder and delay your lights by a couple of hours or so? That way you can enjoy the reef when you're home and still feed the fish breakfast while you're at work.