Split schedule lighting?

[xCry0x]

My tank is in my office and in the summer the t5 lights + chiller turn my office into a furnace.

I started killing my t5s in the afternoon between 12:30 - 3pm to help with the room temperature.

I then extended my lighting an hour earlier in the day and 2 hours later in the day.

I did some reading, and didn't find anything super conclusive around if this would be problematic or not. Read something talking about corals needing at least 5 hours of light in one window for the photosynthesis to kick in. Not sure if there is truth in that.

Im running 7am -> 12 noon ( 5 hours) then 3pm -> 9pm (6 hours). That is a total of 11 hours of full light which seems way excessive. I previously did 10am-7pm (9 hours) and would prefer to do something more like:

9am -> noon (3 hours) 3pm -> 8pm ( 5 hours) for a total of 8.

Would this jump out as problematic to anyone? Is there truth in needing 5 hour+ blocks?

The addition of the chiller this year put me over the edge - dying in my office if the lights are on all afternoon! =)

 

[Ron Reefman]

As I understand it, it takes zooxanthellae about an hour of good light to get the photosynthetic process started. So take the first hour of each time frame out of your equation. So you have 4 and 5 hours of photosynthetic time. Most zooxanthellae will only do about 4 to 6 hours of photosynthesis and then shutdown no matter what amount of light is on. So I think you have more than enough. But I'm not sure if splitting it is a big issue or not. IMHO, it should work.

Good luck.