Now now, be nice, everyone. 8) (Flame sheilds raised
)
Bob has a point in that the wording in the book points it to be an "educated guess." I of course trust Eric Borneman's guesses over any of my own. Troy hit the nail on the head: we do know that lunar cycles play SOME kind of role in many events such as mass spawnings. But as far as putting a lunar cycle onto your tank, it is quite possible you do that more for yourself than you do for your captive reef. For one, how do you know that the intensity of light matches that of the intensity of real moonlight over the RealReef(tm)? How do you know that your moonrise/moonset doesn't play a more important role than the 28-day cycle of intensity variation? How do you know that it isn't something
indirectly related to the moon cycle (tides, for example), that is more instrumental in these events?
With all that said ....
I do beleive that the moonlight intensity does play some role, because I have heard of cases of coral spawns in people's tanks who have some kind of lunar cycle simulation. Or tanks that are affected by outside lighting conditions (Ron Shimek's carpet anemone, for example, is said to to spawn every year and the tank is near a window so IS affected by the "real" lunar cycle).
And so on and so on. Almost irrefutable fact that lunar cycle plays a ROLE, but as to putting a moonlight over your tank, unless you take into account the amount of intensity, and the moonrise/moonset times, and tides, then it is
possibly arguable that all we're doing is putting a night viewing light on there for own own viewing interest.
Just my $0.02 .....