Optimal photoperiod for SPS

[Boxofpurplerocks]

Wow, I can't believe how many people run longer peak hours. I'm only at 4hrs with a 12hr photoperiod but after reading this I am going to slowly bump it up to 6-8hrs for full lighting.

Glad I asked this question, I didnt realize how much variation there was! Interesting that people can run such widely different photoperiod while still having similar levels of success.

 

[ChrisQ0904]

Me too honestly, I have always had subpar growth compared to most other people I see on the forums and maybe/hopefully this is my answer to the problem. I have pretty much always run my lights with peak being only 4 hours. Very excited to see if it makes any significant changes.

 

[SeaDweller]

This is my Photon V2+ schedule. What I keep consistent is high blues, but what has helped for growth and coloration I feel is adding slightly more whites (although still low) and increasing the reds. I haven’t seen an explosion of algae in my tank, and those levels still look great to my eyes, might try bumping up the whites some more.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

As i mentioned i run mine 12-13 hours... but i dont have fancy leds to ramp up.. I use t5s, and i use cheap chinese T5HO fixtures. The ati fuxture and these both use polished alum reflectors nearly identical.. And it was proven by BRS that a open air fixture with no fans the bulbs run at optimal temos for full par.. The only reason the ati fixture has fans is due to the splash sheild which raises the fixture temp.. So in the end the ati fixture is a giant rip off. I have a 24 inch 4 bulb and 48 inch 4 bulb 7 inches above my tank. I opted for two fixtures like this to cover the entire 72 inches of the tank.. Not a fan of dark left and right sides using 1 short fixture like some people do.

I opted for 4 bulb because my 135 is only 18 inches front to back.. I could have gone to a 6 bulb but honest 6 bulbs would waste a ton of light the two outer bulbs would bleed over the back and front of the tank. 4 is plenty, plus the cost of replacing 8 bulbs vs 12 played a big role.

These kind of fixtures... One thing im a tad upset about was the pictures and description stated they had 2 switchs so i could turn two bulbs on then the other 2 to (ramp it up) but mine came with 1... false advertising.

Oh well i just turn em on in the am and i have no ramp up... Besides the 5 minutes it takes for the bulbs to warm up lol. So my tank is getting 12 hours of full power.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

This is my Photon V2+ schedule. What I keep consistent is high blues, but what has helped for growth and coloration I feel is adding slightly more whites (although still low) and increasing the reds. I haven’t seen an explosion of algae in my tank, and those levels still look great to my eyes, might try bumping up the whites some more.

This is why corals grow better under metal halides and t5s then leds. Blue light IMO is just a gimick to make corals look pretty... unless its a deep water coral most corals in the wild will see red light.

Its no different front plants... pink bulbs are the best for growing plants.... since algae is a olant.. and corals use algae for energy then why wouldnt pink bulbs or a pink spectrum with blue and red together be bad.

This is just how i see it.

This is also why my t5s i have two blue plus and two coral plus bulbs.. corsl plus is a more pinkish white color.. has alot of red and green in it with blue.. My tank has a blue.whitish pinkish color to it.

The same color that metal halides and blue t5s put out.


This is an older pic of my 55g hexagon when i first set it up ... but im just posting this to show you what in my opinion the color spectrun of the tank should look like for optimal growth.

 

[Foothill Corals]

T5 W/Reefbrites

LED- 11hrs
T5- 2 bulbs 9hrs
T5 - all 8 bulbs 6hrs

 

[SeaDweller]

This is why corals grow better under metal halides and t5s then leds. Blue light IMO is just a gimick to make corals look pretty... unless its a deep water coral most corals in the wild will see red light.

Its no different front plants... pink bulbs are the best for growing plants.... since algae is a olant.. and corals use algae for energy then why wouldnt pink bulbs or a pink spectrum with blue and red together be bad.

This is just how i see it.

This is also why my t5s i have two blue plus and two coral plus bulbs.. corsl plus is a more pinkish white color.. has alot of red and green in it with blue.. My tank has a blue.whitish pinkish color to it.

The same color that metal halides and blue t5s put out.


This is an older pic of my 55g hexagon when i first set it up ... but im just posting this to show you what in my opinion the color spectrun of the tank should look like for optimal growth.

[emoji2958][emoji2356][emoji2357]

 

[Jdavison911]

T5's with Reefbrites

Reefbrites 10:00 am - 9:30 pm
4 ATI blue plus 12:30 pm - 8:30 pm
2 ATI blue plus and 2 true actinic 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm

 

[FMF0331]

 

[Jettareefer223]

There’s a lot of determining factors. With my 6 bulb ATI Sunpower/sb bar setup 10” water 12 hours 2x blue plus and sb bar. 6 hours on the other 4 bulbs (2xblue plus/ 2x ati actinic). First time in my reefing career I exceed 8 hours.

 

[SeaDweller]

There’s a lot of determining factors. With my 6 bulb ATI Sunpower/sb bar setup 10” water 12 hours 2x blue plus and sb bar. 6 hours on the other 4 bulbs (2xblue plus/ 2x ati actinic). First time in my reefing career I exceed 8 hours.

How’s it working out?

 

[Jettareefer223]

How’s it working out?

I’ve been quite happy with the combo Ati/sb/bulb combo this was my first t5 setup. The sb bars are a good deal at fraction of the cost of other options and do have their minor problems totally still worth it. The color by a big margin far surpasses reef brite xho’s I had originally two of them mounted on the sunpower. I currently run one sb bar (75%) plenty of output! And with mentioned bulb combo growth it great/color is good. My one mistake was lowering the fixture to 8” off the water increase 4 bulbs the 8 hours trying help shading trying get more color. I let it go for 4 to 5 months and looked back recently at pictures I noticed how rich and detail the coloration was then. I reverted back to my former
photoperiod/height with much improvement in the last few weeks!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I just today installed my Orpheks (V4) and cant believe the color effect and softness of the lighting.
I had to create and adjust a light schedule which I think will be very effective running over a course of 12 hours

 

[Peter Clark]

Too many people focus on how long, and that is the wrong thing to look at. You need to look at how long at what power. If you run your lights at a high power, you need a short lighting duration. If you have a lower power light, you run it longer. Ecotech did some really cool experiments about this recently. Basically testing daily light integral which is based on power and duration. So they kept 2 tanks the same DLI, but one was low power for long duration and one was high power for short duration. There were some slight difference in the shape of some coral, but the biggest difference they saw wasn't with coral but algae. Algae apparently did better in longer light duration.

 

[ScottB]

I answered 8 hrs, but that is +500 PAR at 6 inches deep for both SPS tanks and 250 PAR for one LPS/zoa.

For all: actinic for 2hrs morning and night.

One hybrid light tank. The other two T5 only with 6 or 8 bulbs.

While I love LED for the same reasons we all do, I am s-l-o-w-l-y getting the message that the animals I keep prefer T5.

Sorry for the Iphone color but here are some animals under 8X80 watt T5s only. I cut them back to make 20 good frags only 1 month ago.

 

[Jettareefer223]

I mean not being confrontational at all I’m sure your speakimg unanimously as a whole in the hobby. I didn't eloberate my reason to how/why settled on my photoperiod /combo. Your post triggered a reminder. It was my first t5 setup I invested more thought, then I would’ve otherwise. Recreating nature being a goal I say this loosely nothing super critical just trying to think incorporating variables nature reef experience. Duration set 12 hour total most regions where our inhabitants will be close to that I’m around my late at night it ended up working out. Height was 10” off the water was determined my tank dimensions it’s shallow as it is wide 18”x18” (36” L) and measured par readings. Allowing too much spill would negate maximizing the amount t5 tubes (6 bulbs) kept that in mind. Photo period was an attempt match natural dusk/dawn (non peak hours) and daylight (peak hours) compromised spectrum and duration/cast based on my personal thoughts of sun as passes over the reef during that period.. We know that corals utilize blue spectrum 420mn, etc. 12 hours a day SB Led bar 75% output and 2 blue plus use for non peak hours. (I had the bar at 12 hr/blue plus at 10 hrs to add detail varying levels of intensity (3 timers proved too many redundancy told me to make it simple). The the water filters the sunlight at even depths not all to deep, but there’s exception’s this isn’t applicable the shallow reef flats Bali/Fiji almost completely unfiltered light/some cases exposed at lowtide. Generally speaking trending to a cooler spectrum no real defined wavelength I’m avoiding a dissertation I’m unfit to stand trial haha. Close at any rate create “indirect sunlight “(non peak hours) all blue/UV peak basically and producesa good amount par. Daylight 6 hours total time utilizing 2 blue plus and 2 ati actinic bulbs (bought a lot at bulbs trying to find config. my coral and I agreed on which tied guide). The actinic are soft have nice peaks color wise in spectrum and with a shallow tank it made uniform par placed equivocally space within the 4 blue plus. Originally was coral plus, and I like them as well the actinic was just right. 6 a bulb fixture purple plus visibily see never blended with aqua blue specials very white and
corals weren’t happy.

 

[Mickeyt1reef]

12 hours total of lighting - 1 hour ramp up / 10 hours photo period / 1 hour ramp down

That bubble gum Digi is AWESOME! So is everything else!

 

[Ike]

7-9 hours of strong light, the rest, like carefully thought out ramping up or down, is superfluous and mostly for the aquarist. Keep in mind I run strong T5s currently and I think shorter photo periods are sometimes needed due to the way they deliver light.

 

[FMF0331]

 

[Boxofpurplerocks]

Nice looking acro (and growth!). What is it?