Lighting schedule after upgrade

dinki

New member
I have order the Nova Extreme HO 48" 54W x 4 lights (Two 460nm Actinic Blue and two daylight 10,000K SlimPaq high output T5 fluorescent lamps) for my 55 gal tank. Right now I'm running two 24" 18W 50/50 lights. These stay on for 12 hours a day. I'm assuming that when I add this extra light that it could stress out my fish (two ocellaris clownfish, royal gramma, snails, crabs, cleaner shrimp).

What sort of lighting schedule should I start with? What should my final total time on be and how fast should I progress towards that final schedule?
 
The fish would be fine. Its the algae outbreak that might occur that you should worry about.

Run the t5's for 4hrs for a 5 days and then 6hrs and so on until you get to about 10hrs. You should run the actinics for about 10hrs and the daylights for 8 once you acclimate your tank.
 
Fantastic. Thanks..

So run both actinics and daylights for the 'break in' period? Or should I be running the actinics for 4 hours and the daylights for 2 hours for the first five days?
 
You should run both sets of lights for 4 hours a day and ramp up the period every week. Do you have any corals? If not dont worry about it.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11653732#post11653732 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by speeddemonlsr
You should run both sets of lights for 4 hours a day and ramp up the period every week. Do you have any corals? If not dont worry about it.

No, I don't have any corals. What is it that I shouldn't worry about?
 
Back
Top