Lighting overkill??

[fishlips12]

In an effort to reduce algae growth and heating of the tank could I lower the amount of time I turn on the lights? Or can I just leave one of the two lights on and which one?

I have one 65w actinic and one 65 w 10k . I turn them on at about 11 am and off at 10 pm.

I have 70 pounds of LR in a 55 gal tank with no coral or anemones as yet.

For critters I have
1 clown
4emerald crab
5 snails
3 hermits
1 shrimp
3 damsels

It seems as though you are running your lights for 11hours.. From my understanding you can run your lights I have seen a min of 4hrs to some who run theirs 14hours.. As in running the lights separate you could run your lights on this schedule.

03 on at 11am
10k on at 12pm
10k off at 9pm
03 off at 10pm

It should cut down with the algae some.. Or you can do about the same with shorter hours... Some books suggest running your 8hrs a day to help minimize algae.
03 on at 11am
10k on at 12pm
10k off at 8pm
03 off at 9pm
would be my suggestion but being a newbie my advice is just purely what I have interpreted from books I have read.. If I am wrong someone please correct me.

HTH,
James

[OUfishman]

In a few posts I have read that the fish dont really even need light at all, its more for looks and so you can see your fish. Since you dont really have anything in there that absolutly needs light you can come up with basically any lighting schedual that you want. I would put the lights on for at least a little bit just to keep you live rock going and help the spread of coraline alge.

If the light has seperate ballasts for the 03 and day's, your best result will come from just using the actinic lighting for now. Most nuisance algaes will not do well in that particular spectrum. The coralline however should do fine.

Try cutting down to 6-8 hrs a day for a week and see if that helps. If not, reduce it another ½hr a week until you do see some better results. Keep in mind though that this being a newer tank, the fuel source is still in the tank and needs to be burned up. Once the diatoms die off they will release silicates into the water anew. I would suggest toughing it out for a little while before you start altering things too drastically.

Cheers
Steve

[fishlips12]

Thanks all for the good advice. I actually do not have an alge problem as yet. Even after three weeks ,since I started , the LR still has plenty of the purple algae showing. Once I do get corals I will likely have to go the full lighting period.