Reef lighting

[Canela]

How many hours of light should my tank have? Right now my lighting hours are terrible. They're on all night while I'm away at work 13 hours. I just bought a timer for my lights. Please help. The lights I recently bought dont have moonlight only option. I have one blue and one white light.



My lights enough or not?

 

[Whiplash187]

I have 2 t5 ho before but dont know if 1 is enough for your tank . I think i have the same what you have and i only let it go on for 6 hrs or 8 if im home

 

[tampa_nick]

My tank has been running with 2 t5s for quite a while. Think I'm gonn up grade and run one of my ai sols on it

 

[BigAl07]

Exactly what lights do you have? T5, PC ? ? ?

What size are the bulbs?

What size is the tank?

Do you have any coral in it at the moment?

A true Reef tank can be lighted anywhere from 8 - 12 hours total. I usually start a tank on the lower side and increase the time period according to what coral I have. Some coral don't need a LOT of light and some need as much as you can give.

Keep in mind that coral (like plants) do better when they have a dark period so try to factor that into your schedule.

 

[Canela]

Exactly what lights do you have? T5, PC ? ? ?

What size are the bulbs?

What size is the tank?

Do you have any coral in it at the moment?

A true Reef tank can be lighted anywhere from 8 - 12 hours total. I usually start a tank on the lower side and increase the time period according to what coral I have. Some coral don't need a LOT of light and some need as much as you can give.

Keep in mind that coral (like plants) do better when they have a dark period so try to factor that into your schedule.

I have T5 HO: 48" 120v. Lamp #1 10,000 and Lamp #2 Actinic HO T5
55 gallon tank
2 frag corals: golden polyps (I think!) and stony corals (very slow growing) I had another but aiptasia killed them because the were so cute!
I plan to get just a few more coral and then live rock. I want to learn to maintain this tank properly and then a much bigger tank.

 

[BigAl07]

I have T5 HO: 48" 120v. Lamp #1 10,000 and Lamp #2 Actinic HO T5
55 gallon tank
2 frag corals: golden polyps (I think!) and stony corals (very slow growing) I had another but aiptasia killed them because the were so cute!
I plan to get just a few more coral and then live rock. I want to learn to maintain this tank properly and then a much bigger tank.

Ok forgive me if I have misunderstood but it sounds like you've added coral before the live rock? That's pretty much backwards from conventional thought. The reason is your Live Rock is a LARGE portion of your biological filtration system and you want that in place, established, and MATURE before you introduce coral to the system. Coral need the most stable environment you can provide and I can assure you that adding Live Rock to a system is not the most stable process. It CAN be done but it's not really something I would try.

Your lights are on the low side for coral as least from my prospective... I like to see a 4 bulb set-up on a 55g to call it low/medium light and either a high end 4-bulb set up (high end ballasts and high end individual reflectors) or more bulbs to consider it medium light.

Give it some thought and I'd like to hear more about your set-up.