I've always just kept my lighting to a max of 12 hours. In the tropics it's more or less a steady 12 hours year-round, I'm sure there is some seasonal fluctuation but to me it just seems "better" that if you have a, say, "summer peak" of 14 hours daylight that you should correspondingly have a "winter peak" of 10 hours. Have I any studies to back up my opinion? None whatsoever! Just a subjective opinion on my part. I avoid the issue altogether by saying "Ok, my tanks are exactly on the equator and have 12 hours daylight total year-round."
I run my lights from 10:30 to 22:30. I've often thought about shifting this a little later for the sake of being able to see my tanks longer in the evening since I'm usually up to 12 or 1 anyhow but for me it's just easier to coincide the tank lights with real daylight. (For example on days where I don't work then it becomes weird that I can't see the tanks before noon. But also light comes in through the windows and stuff so daylight will always be brighter than non-daylight no matter what I have the timers set at, so might as well set them close to the real thing and just deal with it...)