Lighting hours
 

Interested to see how long everybody keeps their main lights on for

12hrs on/12hrs off. 4x 39W T5 each bulb is a different spectrum. Tank also gets natural sunlight from behind some days so that does extend the light period.

10 hours on 3x250w and 12 hours on 4xt5ho.

Voted 7, but it's actually 7.5 hours.

For a more accurate response, you may have wanted to differentiate between T5s and halides on the poll as people tend to treat them a bit different.

On my 90 the halides are on for 6 hours, and supplemental for 13 hours. (This was my vote answer)

On my nano the T5s are all on 13 hours.

T5's: 12 hours
Halides: 8 hours

T5's 12hrs
MHs 6 hrs
Seemed to have pretty good results.
Now switched over to LEDs so I cant really vote with those as now on a scheduled 24hr program.

12 Hours - 2 Vertex Illumilux (453nm Blue & 7K White) LED modules & 3 Ecoxotic Stunner LED strips (453nm Blue & 8K White)

24 Hours - 2 Ecoxotic Stunner LED strips (453nm Blue) Moonlights

However, I'm thinking of dropping the main lighting down to 10 hours a day. I'm battling a massive GHA outbreak at the moment.

blues 7am-11pm, whites 8am-930pm, no hair algae, no diatoms, the anemone has tripled in size in a year.

My power compacts turn on at 11am, my halides kick in at 12pm and run until 6pm, then my power compacts turn off at 7pm.

I had some fun programming my controller... maybe a little too much?

My times change daily, generally 8 - 12 hours. sunrise/sunset times are from Australia so that summer has short days here(less halide heat), winter has long days. I offset the sunrise/sunset times by 3 hours so that I'm awake when everything turns on/off.

actinic - sunrise to sunset (10 - 14 hours)
Left Halide - sunrise + 1 hour to sunset - 3 hours
Right Halide - sunrise + 3 hours to sunset - 1 hour
Center Halide - sunrise + 2 hours to sunset -2 hours

Today the actinics where on from 9:18am - 10:10pm, each halide was on for 8hours 52 min.

The controller was pretty good through the summer, I'll have to see how all the extra light does in the winter. Temperature's stayed great through the summer as well. I live in Vancouver though, so I guess I should still expect a heat wave this year, and also some snow in late may :S.

i have 2 Maxspect G2-160 watts LED (Bridgelux) for 72 bowfront. a 3 stages timer set as:

10 am -10 pm 3 watts 20K
12 pm - 8 pm 3 watts 14k
3 pm - 6 pm 30 watts 10k

seems fine for the last 16 months.

i voted 11,because 9 of my t8 tanks run 11hours(6hours 1hour break5 hours)
and 4 tanks running t5 going for about 9.5 hours
but i have 5 tanks running t5HO and i only run 8hours
and 2 tanks have t8bulbs but run only 6-7 hours.

with this many tanks its hard to choose one time period.

Im Running my 10k, 250w HqI Mh 12am to 6 am (I work nights) even after 4 years of this tank running with no crashes im still figuring this light thing out :)