ramping lights?

[rough eye]

so, got 2 cats here and already one or both of them figured out how to turn lights on and off using the touch switch on the evo13 hood. needless to say hood and lights that fit it will have to stay on this tank.

 

my question is, ramping lights up and down to turn on and off in the morning and evening - is it important? if so, how important? how many don't even bother with it?

 

Fluval makes a timer to fit this light (i believe), but seems to be unavailable in any online stores i've looked, including Amazon. Know where I can get one? or should i not even bother?

[paulsz]

I've only ever had one light and it was an AI prime which has ramp up and down. But from what I've read.. it's okay to not have ramp up/down. With the fluval evo, you could just go to the blue light, then the full light later, and then the blue light before sleeping for the night. In the past, there wasn't really ramp up and down. With T5's, if you had multiple fixtures, you could light two bulbs at a time on a timer switch, so it would give a bit of a ramp up/down. But with Metal Halides, i don't think they had ramp up and down. 

 

What kind of inhabitants do you have? any corals too?

 

edit: I ask what inhabitants you have because i had a firefish that would freak out everytime my light glitched and turned off all of a sudden. Meanwhile, my blenny, clown and goby could care less..

[rough eye]

just starting so no inhabitants yet. but looks like one more reason maybe a firefish isn't the best to start as the first fish. with these lights they only cycle full > blue > off, so there's no way to go directly from off to blue, as far as i can tell.

[paulsz]

you can tap twice. It won't shock any corals by going into full for a couple of seconds before going to blue. Tank inhabitants will get used to it I would think. Then you go blue >off>full.  shouldn't be an issue either.  

 

[rough eye]

so do people generally leave the blue light on all night?

[paulsz]

no i don't think so. You'd want the lights to be off at some point. I know a lot of critters come out at night only. Some snails and other clean up crew. 

[rough eye]

thanks!

[Clown79]

I've used various lights over the yrs. My personal preference has been the lights where i can set up a natural light schedule with ramp up and ramp down.

 

I love my ai's. My cats definitely can't do anything to them.  

[Clown79]

3 hours ago, rough eye said:

so do people generally leave the blue light on all night?

Some have run a 24hr light schedule particularly if you can control the blues percentage. 

 

But naturally, reefs and fish don't get light 24/7.

I have my ai to follow the natural moon phases but its only on till 12am so some nights its at 5%, some at 2%, some not at all. Depends on the moon.

[mcarroll]

On 12/9/2020 at 1:12 PM, rough eye said:

my question is, ramping lights up and down to turn on and off in the morning and evening - is it important? if so, how important? how many don't even bother with it?

Nobody in the hobby, roughly speaking, from about 1850 through 2007 ever bothered with ramping lights at all.  (157 years.  Seriously.)

 

Even through the whole era of powered lighting (maybe the 1950's onward?  60's?) nobody bothered with it until very recently.

 

It's only been on the radar for about the last 8+ years or so, give or take.  Took quite a while to catch on from the introduction of the Solaris in 2007....or seemed to anyway. 

https://reefs.com/magazine/product-review-a-new-horizon-in-lighting-pfo-s-solaris-led-system/

 

So it's not important at all is my conclusion.  

 

Fun.  Yes.  

 

Interesting.  Yes.  

 

Maybe even beneficial?  Yes, maybe.  

 

But no, not important.

 

Personally I've still had slightly more non-dimming light fixtures than dimming ones.  I went with dimming mostly out of curiosity the first time.  I didn't go for dimming on the next round though, or any of the DIY builds.  And then I went with a dimming setup again on my newest setup.  

 

🤷‍♂️

Go with your gut.