Photoperiod Question

[drock59]

What kind of substrate and photoperiod are you running?

[fly guy]

12 hours MH on my 225 DSB tank

 

12 hours actinics, 8 hours MH on my 90 BB tank.

 

FWIW......it took me a while on my BB set up to get the happy place going on the MH photoperiod. I had it down to as little as 4 at one point.

[R-3]

9 hrs on my MH

 

Moonlights are on 1 hour before and after

 

Carib Sea Aragamax Select 1-1/2"-2" thick

[nu2reef-n]

12 hours actinics. 10 hours metal halides. 8 hours moon lights

[oldbrownies]

13 hours actinic, 12 hours 400 watt MH 10K on a 65 with aragonite sand

[DChemist]

16 hours actinics, 12 hours 10K T-5's over aragonite DSB (not very fine).

[dippin61]

10:00 am - VHO actinics on

11:00 am - VHO 50/50 on

12:00 pm - 250w MH on

8:00 pm - VHO 50/50 off

9:00 pm - MH off / VHO 50/50 on

10:00 pm - VHO 50/50 off

12:00 am - VHO actinics off

[Ronjunior]

12 hours blue actinics, 10 hours white actnics. All 48" VHO 110w. (I cracked my cold cathode moonlights before mounting them :( ) 1 1/2-2" Seaflor grade aragonite.

[BADBaxter]

Just installed the new Actinics (Thanks Powdertang05!)

I am trying... 2nd night now...

M - F

On all time. Moonlights 6 520nm LED's

11:00AM Actinics on - 2 110W VHO URI Super Actinic, 6 months old? (Thanks DennisW! Ron for bringing!)

1:00PM Halides on - 2 250W Corallife 20K bulbs, used 4 months? (Thanks Ken E!)

9:00PM Halides off

11:00PM Actinics off

 

S & S

On all time. Moonlights

10:00AM Actinics on

12:00PM Halides on

11:00PM Halides off

1:00PM Actinics off

 

Sand is Agronite mix... (except for a dazzling white patch that came from Nu2reef-in!)

 

 

P.S. With this post I know how lucky we all are to have this club! Very Cool!

[andy]

14 hours on VHO blue actinic (single 48")

8 hours on 175W 10k MH

Mixed aragonite substrate

 

A bit longer on the actinic than I'd prefer, but I like to feed flake before I leave for work in the morning and be able to see things in the evening too.

[Palani]

I go with 13 hours of 14K MH. a mixture of sugar fine, up to pin sized.

[dippin61]

oops forgot.. BB with 1x250w 14k hammy. switching to 2x250w helios off hqi ballasts soon though.

[Michael7979]

800am vhos come on (6hrs)

200pm mhs on and vhos go off (6 1/2 hrs)

830pm mhs go off and vhos back on (1 1/2hrs)

1000pm vhos go off and moonlights come on (4 hrs)

 

DSB with 1-2mm grain (so the bag said but I think its larger)

[impur]

8hrs actinics, 7 hours all bulbs on my 6-54w TEK T5 fixture. I have southdown sand about 2" deep.

[josh]

13 ish hours all lights, 4x110W VHO's on a 55gal. refugium lite 24hrs. 3+ inches of sugar fine mixed with whatever I couldn't pull out when I switched from the coral rubble to thesugar fine.

 

anthony calfo did a DSB study in his book of coral propagation that sounded good to me.

[drock59]

Thanks everyone.....

 

Now a tougher question. What are the signs and symptoms of too much light? Too little?

[oldbrownies]

That is a hard question, I hope all this helps you with your lighting questions (its just a huge debate with too few answers).

 

Too much light would show some signs similar to too little: poor polyp extension, slowing of growth, and brown outs & color changes.

 

When a coral is limp or flimzy looking or polyps are retracted, other factors aside, it could be lighting that the issue, and the coral is starving for light or overly filled with chemicals that the zooxanthelae are releasing when not in the light or in the light, too much oxygen is a good example. Soft corals such as sinularia often close up alot under high light conditions, near mid afternoon, when they just have too much oxygen in the tissues

 

If you notice that a once healthy and growing coral (look for growth at tips of course) is not responding well to the new lighting scheme, it could be either too much or too little, either causing itself harm or starvation with too much production or too little by the algaes in its tissue.

 

Color and brown outs are a BIG indicator of poor lighting conditions (too much would be a poor condition). Assuming that your corals are optaining enough foods from plantonic and other sources and arent under other stresses, a major sign of this would be the lack of lustor, colors becoming less vivid (brown can be the natural color and it can be vivid!) or color becoming too translucent (other than translucent corals). Expect some color change anytime you move a coral to a new location, even in the same tank, but the color that it becomes should be bright (yes even bright brown), have a soft look, and be a solid healthy color. A coral in bad lighting conditions may become dirty and dull looking, pale, or brown out, a browned out coral under too much light will tend to take on a lighter tan color (oak or maple wood), under too much light a brown out tend to take on a deeper brown color (walnut).

 

I think that a big misconception about "too much light" would be corals "burning", most of the burns corals can experience isn't from not liking the amount of light, but the need to adjust. It is just like at the start of summer when you might get a sun burn after being in the dim light for so long. Most of these corals like very bright light, much brighter than we can provide and they are often put in situations where the light is only a small fraction of what they would get in nature.

 

Wattage is also not a good indication of light, Color tempurature is a big factor too. Here are some XM specs on standard magnetic ballasts in PPFD

175 W 250 W 400 W

10K-72 10K-13710K-172

15K-39 15K-5515K-104

20K-35 20K-7320K-128

 

This just shows that a 20K 250 watt bulb has about the same amount of usable light as a 10K 175 watt MH and a 15K 250 watt has even less. 10K bulbs also tend to put twice the lumens of a 20K, and 20K bulbs twice the lumens of a 15K, with some variance depending on brand.