photo periods
 

came across this thread tonight and found it extremely interesting. I am going to change my lighting to shorter periods with my growing bulbs while staying the same with my supplimentals.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...5&pagenumber=1

And here I just rose my lighting period from 9 to 10 hours after seeing Lobsterboys tank and hearing how long others keep their lights on. Right now I've noticed more growth, so maybe the lighting period has to be varied here and there, just like how it happens in nature with seasons.

From what i have noticed in my tank I actually had to bring my schedual down once from 10-9 hours and i have noticed improvement. Today i was thinking how my T5's are producing to much light and in some cases I have also noticed that even milli's in the higher points in my tank are losing color and a stylo on the sand is losing it's base color. My acro's are doing decent but have become a bit dull so right now i am going to give this a shot. i will be updating my build thread so i will have before and after shots.

I brought mine down from 10 hours to 6 hours a few months back. I have seen nothing but great results. Pretty much exactly what people have been saying in that thread--better polyp extension, better color, better growth.

It makes sense too...If you go a bit further than that thread and do some reading (search on google scholar about Photoinhibition in corals) you will find its not completely clear yet but most scientists are leaning towards excessive amounts of light actually "exhausting" corals and slowing growth down.

7 hours for my tank. Good growth and nice colours. So far so good. :)

How long have you been at 7 hours?

Great link ! Thanks. I am now going to be changing my lighting schedule :lol:

saw the same post on reef central last week, and after a week of 5 hour photo periods I've definitely seen a difference, much more polyp extension and all my SPS are colouring up quite nicely. I don't really need the lights on when I'm at work anyways and evaporation has been quite a bit less as well.

Colin

Ok trying really hard not to come off sounding harsh but, your tank is basically brand spankin new. I would venture to guess that is why you are losing color in some of your acros....and as far as the stylo goes....I warned you about them, did I not?

lol on my wicked frag order we needed an extra $25 to get half off for shipping so i paid it and told dave to suprise me and thats what he sent me. Its actually doing good and its been 2 weeks, just lost a bit of color. I test my water every second day, lose of color for sure is due to the light. I moved the stylo higher in the tank for a day and the light basically cooked it, its back down in the lower part of the tank and color has come back.