Lights for corals

[1st reef]

Is it necessary to keep the blue lights on at night or I can turn all lights off?

Itll be softies, lsp.. 

Light in question is the current orbit marine led. 

[Clown79]

Some people like to run moon lights all night, some like to for a few hrs to allow for extra viewing at night.

 

The moon lights aren't run at 100%, usually 1 - 5%

 

Its best to have them off at some point as in the ocean, the moon isn't visible all night long

[banasophia]

I run mine pretty late because I stay up late, but I do have them off completely part of the night so the fish can get good sleep… some of my fish do not settle into their spots and go to bed until the lights are fully out. 

[1st reef]

I guess I'll be able to programme the whites to 8hrs and blue for another 3-4 hours and ramping down to 0 from there. 

[debbeach13]

Mine is set to turn on at 10am, 1.5 hours ramp up, 8 hours daylight with the white around 65% and everything else at 100%, then ramp down for 1.5 hours. But I set the moonlight blue to zero instead of 10% on mine. That basically turns the moonlight off 6 hours earlier. Now every thing settles down in a dark tank.  

[filefishfinatic]

11 hours ago, 1st reef said:

Is it necessary to keep the blue lights on at night or I can turn all lights off?

Itll be softies, lsp.. 

Light in question is the current orbit marine led. 

no it isnt. i run my relassy light on like 10-20% all colors but blue. blue 100% 

[Tired]

You can and should turn the lights off at night, so everything gets a rest. Fish don't have eyelids, so they shouldn't have lights blaring down at them on all hours. A very dim blue light for a few hours in the evening can be good. I run dim blue lights every evening in hopes of luring out pods for my fish to snack on. No clue if it works. 

[filefishfinatic]

at night i have to turn my tank off so i can sleep. i used to keep my room light on but i think its too bright. my anenome does its nighttime stuff and my fish usually go to sleep but i dont think its good euough. any thoughts? i ususally run my tank 7am-8pm (when i wake up and when i want to start going to sleep) 

[jservedio]

If you have photosynthetic organisms in your tank, you need to have the lights out at night. Just like there is a light cycle, there is a dark cycle for photosynthesis (remember high school biology from freshman year?). The zooxanthella in your corals follow the Calvin cycle just like other photosynthetic organisms. Additionally, your stony corals lay down the most skeleton right at sunset and for a few hours after dark. They also purge the built up oxygen that's a byproduct from the photosynthesis that takes place during the day.

 

Having a night time on your reef tank is critically important to it's success. After ~16 hours or so of light, it starts taking a toll on your corals. While it's totally fine to run moon lights or very low intensity lights at night while you are still awake to look at your tank, the tank should be dark while you aren't there to look at it.

 

I start to ramp up my lights starting at 9am and "sunset" is at 6pm, but I leave my RB/UV channels on very low intensity (daytime is around 90w of total light, at night time I use around 4w) until around midnight when it goes totally dark.

[PeterU]

21 minutes ago, jservedio said:

remember high school biology from freshman year?

I don't remember what I had for supper last night and high school was over 40 years ago. 😂

[jservedio]

12 minutes ago, PeterU said:

I don't remember what I had for supper last night and high school was over 40 years ago. 😂

 

That was only 20 years ago for me, but if I can still remember that after spending my entire time in high school partying, getting high, and chasing girls I am jealous of whatever you were doing back then!

[filefishfinatic]

im glad i dont make very bad descisions 

[PeterU]

1 hour ago, jservedio said:

 

That was only 20 years ago for me, but if I can still remember that after spending my entire time in high school partying, getting high, and chasing girls I am jealous of whatever you were doing back then!

Pretty much the same. I doubt it's too much different now.

[1st reef]

My tank is starting to get Coraline but it also started getting green algae. 

My whites were at 90% but now I lowered them to 70% in hopes of stopping the spread of green algae but will this affect the Coraline growth? 

[Clown79]

14 minutes ago, 1st reef said:

My tank is starting to get Coraline but it also started getting green algae. 

My whites were at 90% but now I lowered them to 70% in hopes of stopping the spread of green algae but will this affect the Coraline growth? 

A lot of hobbyists run very low whites and have no issue growing coralline.

 

I ran my whites at 15% for 3 hrs, the rest of the photo period was 10, 7, then 0 %

[banasophia]

Alternatively, I run my white lights for a long time and keep lots of snails to eat the algae. 

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

14 minutes ago, banasophia said:

Alternatively, I run my white lights for a long time and keep lots of snails to eat the algae. 

Question if I may on snails! Love em but they're not eating the algae (mostly green, some brown diatoms on the glass). They're turbos. Will they ever clear the glass? 

[banasophia]

8 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Question if I may on snails! Love em but they're not eating the algae (mostly green, some brown diatoms on the glass). They're turbos. Will they ever clear the glass? 

I use an algae scraper such as a Flipper Nano or a Two Little Fishies Nano-Mag to clean the glass every day or so on my tanks. Some snails eat some film algae off the glass but they leave tracks so I still usually use a scraper of some kind. 

[WormLicker]

16 minutes ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Question if I may on snails! Love em but they're not eating the algae (mostly green, some brown diatoms on the glass). They're turbos. Will they ever clear the glass? 

Lol, lucky. I pick mine from the glass and try to make it eat stuff on the rock almost every day. Alas, it's in a corner every morning again.. trade??  Hahahah!!

[InAtTheDeepEnd]

48 minutes ago, WormLicker said:

Lol, lucky. I pick mine from the glass and try to make it eat stuff on the rock almost every day. Alas, it's in a corner every morning again.. trade??  Hahahah!!

They've also pulled apart two lots of rocks that were super glued together so sure 😂😂

[Clown79]

2 hours ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Question if I may on snails! Love em but they're not eating the algae (mostly green, some brown diatoms on the glass). They're turbos. Will they ever clear the glass? 

Hit and miss. My trochus and spiny stars did a lot of the work on the glass, all the turbos i got never really did.

 

Most of it was removed with my nano flipper which was 1 of the best things i ever purchased.

[Tired]

You want to have green algae, to some extent. It feeds the pods, and it covers your rocks and outcompetes pest algaes. It also looks better than white rock. The green algae you see that lays flat to the rock isn't a pest, it's only hair algae and other coral-engulfing algaes that are pests. That stuff on the shell is good.