light timing question

[ckmn101]

I am upgrading my fowlr tank so I can have some corals/inverts in the future. My question is about the lights- I just bought a PC fixture with 2 12000K daylight and 2 actinic bulbs and the bluemoon led. Should I have both sets of bulbs on all day or the daylight bulbs on less? I have been running my regular flourescent for 13hrs/day.
Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[Dr.Nate]

most people (including me) have the daylight bulbs on an hour or two less to simulate the dawn and dusk effect. I kind of like it like this....it gives my tank time to "wake up" a little before the daylight bulbs come on.

 

[Vanphyre]

Hey Ckmn101,

Summary of my light cycle below. I'm sure you'll get many responses of variations of the cycle. This seems to work pretty well for me, especially to optimize viewing after we get home from work.

Here are my lights:

10,000K Daylights (36" 2 bulbs)
460nm Actinics (36" 2 bulbs)
3 LED moonlights

My light timing is basically like this, I adjust slightly once in awhile:

11pm to 3pm - moonlights only
3pm to 5pm - Actinics on, moonlights off
5pm to 10pm - Actinics on, Daylights on, moonlights off
10pm to 11pm - Actnics on, Daylights off, moonlights off

 

[zenn]

i have the dawn/dusk thing going on too with my actinics coming on before the white light ones...and then staying on at night later too.

 

[ColdFish]

You can make it easy on yourself by adding one of the power strips with dual timers. One timer just toggles the moons and actinics on and off. The other timer will control your daylights to come on for the hours in the middle of the actinic cycle. Not a necessity, but they work nice.

 

[GatorDrew]

My light timing is basically like this, I adjust slightly once in awhile:

11pm to 3pm - moonlights only
3pm to 5pm - Actinics on, moonlights off
5pm to 10pm - Actinics on, Daylights on, moonlights off
10pm to 11pm - Actnics on, Daylights off, moonlights off

I just set this up... so far it's pretty cool. Thanks for the tip!