orion Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 So, just out of curiosity, we were wondering if our moon lights need to stay on all night. Does anyone ever shut off ALL of their lights for any amount of time? Are there pros/cons to doing so? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgf86123 Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 moonlighting can be left on all night, its no big deal for it to stay on, and some people leave their sump lights on 24/7, others on a 12 on 12 off and others have their sump/fuge lights on the reverse schedule of their tank lights, but, moonlighting can be left on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 My daylights go off at 6 then then the actinic at 8 and the moonlights off at 10. I do this with the current fixture I have because the moonlights are bright. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orion Posted November 6, 2009 Author Share Posted November 6, 2009 Sweet! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orion Posted November 6, 2009 Author Share Posted November 6, 2009 Right now our schedule is actinics on at 8 or 9 am and off at 9:30 pm, MH on at noon and off at 8 pm, bright moon lights on at 9:25 pm and off at 10:30 pm, and then the dim moon lights stay on all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Moonlights will depend upon how bright they are. If they are too bright then they should be turned off for part of the night. If not then they can stay on. The best guage of this would be to watch your fish to see if they are resting. Depending upon what type of fish they are then they will react differently. (Triggers hide in rocks for instance while clowns/damsels find a spot they feel safe and then rest, scooter blennies burrow into the sand with just their eyes sticking above the sand, etc.) When I had moonlights they stayed on all night however they were barely bright enough to see shapes in the tank. Currently at night they sometimes get a little room lighting that spills over into the tank but otherwise the lights are off through the night. The exception are the refugium lights which come on at night to help keep the PH consistant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Like Rick said it depends. Mine are so bright the clowns won't sleep with them on. On my old nano-cube they were dim enough I could leave them on all night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael7979 Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 I have my moonlight set to go off so there is a period where the tank is totally dark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Any benefit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael7979 Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 Directed to me? I don't know if there are any benefits other then saving me electrical costs! (laugh) I just do it because it seemed right. No other reasoning at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 ah....I didn't know if you had experienced anything different from turning your lights off totally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrd Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 I had experienced differences with my moon lights off. I stumbled across it when swapping out my MH bulbs. I inadvertently hit the switch on the moon lights also, which turned them off when they would have normally kicked on with the timer. When I was looking at the tank at 6am I noticed both my Scolymias (button corals) had fully extended there tentacles-very cool looking, I also noticed tentacles out an all my chalices. This never happened before, so I currently have the tank going totally dark at 2:30am, my moon lights are not that bright either. I had a T5 fixture that had dimmable ML-that was a cool feature and I might add a dimmer to my current set up-Very easy to do I would suggest a dimmer switch for those with overly bright ML-IMO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finch6013 Posted November 6, 2009 Share Posted November 6, 2009 I use moon lights but they are only on at times of the day that I might still be up. They shut off at 11pm and come on again at 6am. This is purely so I can view the tank a little when I get up for work and if I stay up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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