LED moonlight - how much light is too much?

[LCDRDATA]

I decided to experiment with adding moonlighting to my 75-gallon reef setup. To minimize the cost I bought a $15 blue LED rope light (package states 9 watts) at Wal-Mart and just laid it around the inside perimeter of the glass top on my tank. There is a lot of wasted light (since the lights aren't directional), and the LEDs aren't optimized for this use, but with LEDs every inch and a half I figured quantity would make up the difference. I certainly seems to have; definitely lots of POP! from my corals.

However, my wife pointed out that this might be too bright, especially if I left it on all night. I know a number of the corals/zoas were significantly more open under this lighting than they were in the dark (I periodically watch my tank at night with a dim red light to not disturb nocturnal activity). While it looked cool, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. So, can anyone help me out on this? How bright is too bright? If I were to put this and my 'fuge light on a separate timer opposite my main unit (right now my 'fuge is on the same cycle), would this be a good idea or a bad one? Thanks!

 

[redfishblewfish]

I have two, four foot IceCap blue LED lights on my five foot long, 90 gallon tank, and it is pretty bright. I do not run them overnight. I use them as part of my early morning / late evening light cycle, and I think they are on for 1 ½ hours, morning and evening. The reason is that I noticed my Mexican Turbos were not coming out when the LED’s were on. So I would recommend not running them through the night. JMTC