Lighting cycle - total darkness?

[jedimaster1138]

Does anyone run a totally dark - IE no lights, including moon lights - for any part of your day?

I put my first fish in last week (2 blue/green chromis viridis - was supposed to be 3 but one was DOA*) and left my lights off the first half day to not freak them out. Then I slowly built up the lighting as to not shock them. Moon first, then partial daytime, not full daytime lighting till day 2. So far so good...they seem to be getting less shy though they still hide a lot of the time behind my CS90. They are eating though which is good.

Anyway while I was doing this i started thinking...does it make sense for a period of total darkness...is that more natural or beneficial for the fish? (I don't have any coral - yet)

So right now i'm doing something like...

day lights till around midnight
moonlight only 12 AM - 3 AM
3 AM -7 AM --> total darkness (though when the sun comes up some ambient leaks in)
7 AM - 10 AM moonlight only
then 10 AM - midnight day time lights

Does this sound reasonable or sensible? Are there benefits or negatives?

FWIW - my lights are all Ecoxotic LED's. The night light is a blue 24" stunner strip. Day lights are a couple other color stunners (white and blue/magenta) and 2 Panorama Pro blue/white combos.

Again, FO right now... though I am interested in corals down the road, which is part of the reason why I bring up this question.

50g + 12g sump.

TIA

 

[Ron Reefman]

I haven't had moon lights on my tank for 18 mths and nobody seems to mind. There is some ambient ligt from the sump light, but the tank is pretty dark for 6 hours a night. I also turn off my CL system for 5 of those 6 hours (half an hour after lights out and back on a half hour before lights come on). The sump pump is still running about 2600gph thru a 350g system.

 

[ryeguyy84]

My lights run like this. 11:30am-9:15pm moonlights. 1:30pm-8:30pm daylights. Total darkness from 9:15pm - 11:30am

 

[uriken]

Fish only tanks I would say darkness at night is ok (unless you have the one evil fish that likes to strike at night). Now coral tanks I would say there should be a bit more attention paid when it comes to duplicating the moons light and cycle. My personal experience following an astronomy calender which showed the basic phases and cycles of the moon I duplicated with my lights timer and I noticed some benefit.

 

[ryeguyy84]

I thought corals grow/heal at night in darkness. That's just something I heard somewhere though.

 

[Principeces]

I have no lights on from Midnight till 7 am in my reef tank. I had moonlights running previously but stopped using them because I ran out of space on my power strip. In both situations both my fish and corals have been doing great.

 

[spazthecat]

No lights on over my tank from 8pm to 8am every day.

I also have 3 days darkness 24x7 once each month to help with algae control.

--Andy