Quote:
Originally Posted by PoonTang
You could stage your lights to come on from Lto R to give the effect of the sun moving across the sky plus a sunrise/sunset effect. Stage them so they come on about 1 hour apart and the same with going off. Most people seem to only run their MH's about 8 hours a day and report better growth and colours with shorter time periods. Believe it or not corals actually need a break from the sun to stay healthy. Personally I shut off my Actinics when my MH come on. I am running 14k Phoenix bulbs so the actinic isnt even noticible, so why bother. You can run yours however you want, depending on how you want your tank to look and the sunrise/sunset you are trying to achieve.
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hehe, I tried this exact scenario for a couple of weeks before I got really annoyed with how it looked. It is a great concept in theory but aesthetically I didn't like it. It was fine during the week day when I wasn't home much but during the weekends the various intervals (Left one on, middle one on, right one, left one off, middle one off, etc..) looked odd and drove me nuts.
Anyway, you already know how I would run YOUR lights
As PoonTang said though, the majority of of tanks that I've seen don't run their halides for more than 8 hours. 6-8 hours is average, and most people with the T5 and Halide combo use their T5s as a sort of sunrise and sunset effect. T5s come on for an hour or two, then Halides come on to act as mid day lights, then halides go off and T5s are left on for the sunset effect, then T5s off and moonlights come on.