Lighting question

[Danny91]

Hi

I'm new to salt water aquariums and I've just finished my tanks cycle. It's a 14 gal with a 14k led light. I've just added a green star polyp and looking at adding mushrooms and xenia. The question is how many hours should I run the white light before switching to just blue? I want to run it as less hours as possible and more hours with just the blue light? But would that be bad for the corals.

All help and advice appreciated.

 

[crawlerman]

I run both for 8 hours and I run the blues for an hour before and an hour after. Total 10 hours. I believe the minimum for both is 6 hours, but I'm sure you can find conficting opinions all over the place.

 

[Danny91]

I only have the option of white or blue so I can't run both. Could I run white for 6 hours and blue for 4? Would my corals still do well?

 

[nanojg]

I only have the option of white or blue so I can't run both. Could I run white for 6 hours and blue for 4? Would my corals still do well?

What does that mean? Are you switching out the bulbs in the same fixture?

 

[crawlerman]

What brand/model lights do you have. I have never seen a fixture that can only run one at a time. Pictures would help too.

 

[Danny91]

It's the fluval evo sea 13.5. I've just had a look and there is blue led's whilst the white lights on but not many.

 

[TokiHacker]

It's the fluval evo sea 13.5. I've just had a look and there is blue led's whilst the white lights on but not many.

that's how it is suppose to be.

 

[Danny91]

So could I run the white/blue for 6 hours and the blue for 4 hours and still have happy corals? I like the look of it better with just the blue lighting on.

 

[Uncle99]

Blues are what makes a photosynthetic coral "happy" as they use this for their photosynthesis process, in essence its food. White is for you seeing them.
4 hours of blue is short IMO. Blue and white together for 8 ish and just blue for an extra hour is likely the general photoperiod.
Yup blues make the corals pop!
Try what you say and watch your corals.....they will tell you not enough light by either reaching (over extending polyps ) or contracting....
If you have or are going to have a lot of corals...sorry....get a light with 2 channels....

 

[Danny91]

Thank you for the advice I appreciate it.