a tank without lights

[shoddyk]

How many days can a reef tank go without lighting before it starts to effect the corals and fish? I am going to be replacing my lights in my tank and it is going to be a few days of no lights in the tank. How bad is it?

 

[Scottkelly911]

use ANY type of supplemental lighting. take some incandescent lamps and atleast point them toward the tank. what kind of corals are we talking? some things like Mushrooms, brain, zoa's should be ok, but things like Acros could have become stressed a bit. probably wont die on you, but may brown up a bit for a week or so before the new lighting starts to color them up.

 

[shoddyk]

I have everything but SPS corals

 

[horkn]

are there any local reefers that can lend you something until your lights get done?

thats one of the benefits of being in a reef club.

 

[Scottkelly911]

most likely if you're only talking like 2 or 3 days, you should be fine even with LPS that relies heavily on it's zooanthelae for food, however they might start to recede a bit and might take a little while to come back out. if you're talking 4+ days, you might seriously want to see if another nearby reefer can lend you some lights to borrow or you can get a few of those 10-watt screw in 50/50 pc's and just screw them into any desk lamp and point them toward your corals from outside of the tank. they run about 11-12 bux each. Good luck!

 

[shoddyk]

There are only 2 other reefer around where I live. I have 2 x 65watt 50/50 light units I guess I can lay over the tank braces while I swap them out.

 

[Scottkelly911]

definitely your best bet. Are you upgrading your lighting all together or are you just replacing burned out bulbs? If upgrading significantly, be sure to re-acclimate them to the new lights, especially after having very little light for several days. Yuma, yeah I imagine probably not too many people to borrow lights from out there.

 

[uscgbeachbum]

I was without power for about 30 days total (3 hurricanes) during the 2004 hurricane season. I assure you that nothing will die as long as you keep up your flow. Or if you are near a window open up the curtain. I wouldn't even worry about it.

 

[myakkareef]

As noted, I went 9 days straight during HCane Charley. Kept pumps running, but ran no lights because of heat issues. Tank actually looked really good when power came back on and started firing bulbs again. You should be fine with ambient room lighting.