Lighting Requirements

LRomero

New member
Given my new tank which has Bubble Tip Anemones, a Toadstool Leather, a Finger Leather, and a couple Mushroom Leathers I recently found, how many hours do I need to have my lights on for? Right now I have my timer set for 2 hours in in the morning (6AM to 8AM) and then 5 hours in the afternoon (4PM to 9PM). This is 7 hours total for the day. Is this sufficient?
 
Spliting the time isn't awful, but it's not useful either.

The zooxanthellae in the coral take about an hour of intense (close to midday light) to start doing photosynthesis. So you get about an hour in the am and 4 hours in the pm. Thats probably OK for the leathers and mushrooms which don't need a lot of light. But the RBTA likes light as much as sps corals do. So I's suggest a longer run in the afternoon/evening. If you want lights out at 9pm, start the afternoon session between noon and 2pm so it gets 6 to 8 hours of photosynthesis time.
 
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