how long everyone is running the lights on their reef tanks

[neil_04]

i searched and couldnt find much i want some oppinions on how long everyone is running the lights on their reef tanks

 

[brian242pa]

i'm running mine 12 hours with pc's not sure if that is the best amount of light but everything seems to be doing great. Nothing is being bleach at all.

 

[melosu58]

I run VHO lighting and I run my super actinic bulbs 11 hours from 10A to 9P and my 50/50 lights from 11A to 8P which is 9 hours.

 

[stratmaster]

I run my refugium with a power compact light and I leave that on from 10am to about 6pm and then the power compact tank light on top from 6pm till about 2am in the morning. Everything seems to be doing great and I finally actually have a batch of macro algae that's living

Steve

 

[melosu58]

Yes I forgot about my refuge. The lights run 24/7 there.

 

[cmor1701d]

Depends on your lights. PC's and MH/PC|T5 combos are usually on a 12 hour schedule for actinics and 10 hours for MH to create the equitorial equivalent of dawn to dusk. My new LEDS do the dawn/dusk by chaning the power to the LEDs.

If you have sps corals you want to follow that 12 hr (aprox) type schedule. Other wise you can go shorter depending on what's in your tank. For a FOWLR you can run the lights just in the everning when your home so you can view the tank.