Advice Required for lighting periods

[globaldesigns]

Hello Everyone,

I had a wierd thing happen this summer, lost many sps frags and colonies. Everything was perfect, even had Kevin @ Red Coral do testing... But still it happened. Things have stabilized and corals are slowly coming back.

My question is about the lighting period. I was lighting for 11 hours a day, continously. I have 2X250W MH with 2x5ft T5HO... I just changed it last night to break it down to 9 hours total, a 4 hour period (8am to noon) then a 5 hour period (5pm to 10pm). This is a total of 9 hours.

With this new timing, I have removed 2 hours, plus gave the corals a 5 hour break between lighting periods, just in case things are too much.

I want others advise, what do you think?

Specs:
Hamilton Belize 5ft fixture
2X250W MH
2X5ft T5HO
MH bulbs are 10K ushio - Love these as they are very white, no yellow
T5HO are Hamilton's that came with it - Actinics

Please note that fixture and bulbs are about 6 or so months old

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Rick

[DiverDude]

Far from being an expert on this but my thought is that the sun does not rise and set twice in a day. Ergo, such a schedule might screw-up their 'internal clocks'.

Anyone have anything more concrete ?

[Atomikk]

What I found works amazingly well for my system is to have a slow progression of light intesity and spectrum. I have T5 actinics and 400W Radium 20K. The T5s go on first to ease corals and fish into the day. Then only one of the MHs turns on. After 2 hrs, the second MH turns on, but the T5s turn off. Corals should only be subjected to about 4-5 hrs of intense light (whatever spectrum, 10K-20K). Otherwise they photosaturate, and can recess. After the last MH bulbs turns off, the actincs turn on to again ease the fish/corals into complete darkness.

HTH

[globaldesigns]

What I found works amazingly well for my system is to have a slow progression of light intesity and spectrum. I have T5 actinics and 400W Radium 20K. The T5s go on first to ease corals and fish into the day. Then only one of the MHs turns on. After 2 hrs, the second MH turns on, but the T5s turn off. Corals should only be subjected to about 4-5 hrs of intense light (whatever spectrum, 10K-20K). Otherwise they photosaturate, and can recess. After the last MH bulbs turns off, the actincs turn on to again ease the fish/corals into complete darkness.

HTH

Cool, great advice... can anyone confirm this, was/am I hitting them too hard?

[reefwars]

What I found works amazingly well for my system is to have a slow progression of light intesity and spectrum. I have T5 actinics and 400W Radium 20K. The T5s go on first to ease corals and fish into the day. Then only one of the MHs turns on. After 2 hrs, the second MH turns on, but the T5s turn off. Corals should only be subjected to about 4-5 hrs of intense light (whatever spectrum, 10K-20K). Otherwise they photosaturate, and can recess. After the last MH bulbs turns off, the actincs turn on to again ease the fish/corals into complete darkness.

HTH


i do the same if you think about it your trying to mimic where it comes from, i start with t5's in the morning then go halides for about 4-5 hours then i use actinics in the evening.its all done by a timer so i dont mess it up.

in my new set up i plan to phase in moon phases and seasonal time differences:):) cheers:)

[globaldesigns]

Thanks, I appreciate your comments.

This is what I just changed it to:

T5's turn on at noon, MH's turn on at 5PM, then turn off at 10PM, T5's turn off at pm

I think this is better, maybe my slow recovery is due to too much blasting of light.

Your thoughts on my new configuration?

[Atomikk]

I would keep the T5s off until both MHs turn off,then turn them on. Personally, i think that it is unnecessary to keep them on during the 'day'.

[reefwars]

i think its much better. alot of coral react differently and change when its dark so its stressfull to do so more than needed .
also distance from the coral is a big factor i had to tinker with my height to get good growth, now any thing i add out grows my tank in a few months.

glad to hear your tank is making a recovery, sometimes its slow at first and then your growth takes off again:):) cheers

[reefwars]

I would keep the T5s off until both MHs turn off,then turn them on. Personally, i think that it is unnecessary to keep them on during the 'day'.


i agree with that also my halides are on by them selves when they are on:)

[globaldesigns]

I revised things a bit more, will see how that works... As I only have 2 T5's and they are actinics, I will leave them on with the Halides, as it does assist to make my lighting appear very white, not yellow as 10k's can do.

This is what I just changed it to:

T5's turn on at 9am, MH's turn on at 4PM, then turn off at 9PM, T5's turn off at 10pm

I will give this a shot and see how things reacte, hopefully damaged coral from over the summer will like it.

What do you all think, will this config work?

[StirCrazy]

I don't think saturation was a problem at all, and realy asided from a couple hypotheticle articles based of very old studys (unless there are new studdies I am not aware of) I have never heard of anyone who has had reciding corals due to saturation. my own exparaments showed that after 10 hours of intense lights I didn't benifit in growth from more light, but I didn't get corals reciding either, growth just peeked at 10 hours and I was only waisting power for 12 hours of light.

what I did was actinics turn on 2 hours then the MH come on for 8-10 hours, then the actinics stay on for 2 hours after that.

problem with trying to guess what is going on over the summer is you need to know what your temps did. 99% of the time summer problems are from temp changes.

I would start logging temps. I bought a themomitor that would record the daily high and low values and I would record them ever morning and see what was going on over a month or so.. this is what based my desision to buy a chiller.. my temp was swinging from 78 to 88 (hotter on real hot days.) after the chiller I had a swing from 79 to 81. which produced much better results in the corals.

Steve

[globaldesigns]

I don't think saturation was a problem at all, and realy asided from a couple hypotheticle articles based of very old studys (unless there are new studdies I am not aware of) I have never heard of anyone who has had reciding corals due to saturation. my own exparaments showed that after 10 hours of intense lights I didn't benifit in growth from more light, but I didn't get corals reciding either, growth just peeked at 10 hours and I was only waisting power for 12 hours of light.

what I did was actinics turn on 2 hours then the MH come on for 8-10 hours, then the actinics stay on for 2 hours after that.

problem with trying to guess what is going on over the summer is you need to know what your temps did. 99% of the time summer problems are from temp changes.

I would start logging temps. I bought a themomitor that would record the daily high and low values and I would record them ever morning and see what was going on over a month or so.. this is what based my desision to buy a chiller.. my temp was swinging from 78 to 88 (hotter on real hot days.) after the chiller I had a swing from 79 to 81. which produced much better results in the corals.

Steve

Temps have never been a problem as my house is climate controlled. If anything my temp sat at 80 and never really moved day and night, and this also meant my heater never turned on as the pumps, etc did the heating. If anything, now the heater may be used more.

Good advice, I will watch the temps.

[Atomikk]

this saturation that I spoke of is called photoinhibition..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoinhibition

Trust me, corals can and will receede if there is too much light. I have personally witnessed this.

[globaldesigns]

this saturation that I spoke of is called photoinhibition..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoinhibition

Trust me, corals can and will receede if there is too much light. I have personally witnessed this.

Thanks for the article, I am thinking maybe that was my problem, as Kevin (Red Coral) and I have been scratching our heads as to why. Since all parameters are spot on, I am inclined to think lighting and change things.

[MitchM]

I actually think that in order to have strong corals, temperature, water movement and lighting need to vary throughout the day.
It's water chemistry that must remain as stable as possible.
Feeding is also an overlooked aspect of keeping corals. They need more than light and chemicals.
I think that by keeping temperature as steady as possible we actually make our corals weaker or more susceptible to injury.
Allelopathy is also another area that many of us overlook. Many of us keep coral "gardens" - a mixture of different types of corals.
We can't see it, but chemical warfare is constantly occurring. There is no method of determining when our activated carbon needs to be changed, and we depend on that carbon to remove those toxins.

Mitch

[Aquattro]

For photoperiod, I switched down to 6 hours of MH per day, and have better colors than I did with 10 hours. I didn't have any tissue problems with 10, but colors weren't great.
My temps were always all over the place, never an issue either, so I wouldn't worry about temp at all.
Your issues over the summer likely weren't a direct result of lighting, but reducing full intensity can have benefits, such as reducing photoinhibition.
I also keep my T5 actinic on all day, mostly for color. I could turn it off, just don't have any extra pins for my timer :)

[MitchM]

I wasn't able to finish my post properly yesterday so...

I'm not saying that I know what went wrong with your corals, but I don't think that lighting was the problem either.
There was an article in Advanced Aquarist that demonstrated how the lighting from a 250W bulb only produced about 60% of the PAR as the sun: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/7/aafeature2

Ron Shimek did a study that showed how some corals do best at trapping foods at a water velocity of 15cm/sec. How many of us measure actual water velocity?

There are many factors that we do not measure that could be resulting in the demise of our corals.

Mitch