Night time

[gareth.hubbarde]

When does night start in a reef tank? Seems a strange question I know. However I was thinking about the night activities of creatures and corals. Does it have to be completely dark to trigger night activities or would a moonlight phase do with blue lights on so we can see? My lights enter moonlight phase at 1900, at 2000 I'm running just fiji purple led at 20 percent. This makes it still visible to me but not dark. I always wonder about the blue lights too.

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[mcgyvr]

Night starts when you make it..
And yes that can certainly be when your moonlights are on...
Just like in the real world.... its still nighttime even when the moon is out..

Usually you can just look at the corals and see if its sufficiently dark.. They will do their nighttime close up..

 

[Ron Reefman]

Running the violet led(s) for moonlight is fine. However, how many leds is that? If it's only 1 or 2, then running them at 20% may be OK. My fixture has 20 violet leds and if I ran them at 20% power it would be WAY too bright. I run mine at 1% and even then, only for an hour after 'sunset' and an hour before 'sunrise'. The rest of the time I use a small flashlight to look in the tank when the lights are off.

 

[Tripod1404]

My corals do not switch to night activities until it is completely dark. My LPS corals open-up their feeding tentacles only after it is completely dark. I use a red flashlight to check them afterwards.