Opinions of Fuge lighting duration

[Spiffyguy]

I have heard 24/7 and I have heard 16-20. I am redoing my power routing and would like to pull the timre on the fuge light and leave it 24/7. This is on a 24 nanocube. Chamber 2 is set up with live rock and some cheato. Opinions???

Thanks

 

[ol'saltybastage]

I always ran mine 24/7.. some people run fuge lights opposite of the tank lights to minimize PH fluctuations

 

[Spiffyguy]

yeah that was one reason I put it on a timer. It runs like 18 hours I think. Off a bit during the day. My PH stays pretty solid at 8.1. Every time I test it that is what it is at with Salifert kits. I have tested when lights are off for a few hours too. Small tank is probably why I guess.

 

[SSTG]

24/7

 

[HouseDJSTL]

24/7 for Cheato??

 

[DrBDC]

When I had caulerpa I did 24/7 because some feel that decreases the incidence of it reproducing via release of gametes. It will look like it gets washed out clear. This releases a lot of nitrates and phosphates which have supposedly crashed some tanks. With cheato you can save electric and run it on an opposite light cycle as the main tank and it helps maintain pH fluctuations by the photosynthesis occurring.

 

[HouseDJSTL]

What is the best bulb you can use on Cheato to help it grow??

 

[DrBDC]

I've been having good luck with those home depot NO 6500K bulbs with the green ends on them. I run 6 of them over a 110 gallon tank hanging about 1 ft over the stock tank. Very dark green. It's strong enough I can throw mushrooms down in the sump and they do good as well. Lot's of corraline in there and any extra rocks purple up real well too. Good flow is important on it too. You want about 20X turnover in there (for the volume of the sump not the system). Many have luck on smaller sumps with the commercial electric 6500K spiral energy saver fluoro's in a clip on but the success with that is dependant on watts/gallon (even though watts/gallon isn't a good thing to follow it's close enough for sumps) and I guess I'm running about 2 to 2-1/2 wpg. So don't expect 1 clip on 19 watt to do much on a 30 gallon sump. You would need about 3 of them on that example.

 

[Spiffyguy]

Since my tank is so small I just have a little Palm light shining into the 2nd chamber. I think it is like 7 watts. Very small. But he cheato does grow but it is slowly. It works for my application.