shorter photo period = faster growth

How are your fish adapting to the shorter photoperiod? My fish are more active and just seem overall much happier when the lights are on.
 
I'm doing about 6 hours of MH, and the rest T5, for a 12 hour cycle, but really blue at the beginning and in the evening. Corals seem to appreciate it more than all day blasting. Seems like it would mimic nature more closely to have it fade in and out. Many corals are shielded from the sun for part of the day in the wild too.
 
I have all T5s and used to run them for about 10hrs a day. Then I recently changed my bulbs and they are much brighter than the stock bulbs so I had to reduce the lighting period to about 4 hrs a day and I am slowly increasing the lighting period. In the beginning the corals started to bleach a little from too much light but since have recovered and I have noticed much better PE and better color. But I am not sure if that is due to good water quality or due to lights. This is definitely a good topic worth of research.
 
Now all I have is a Current Sunpod with no other supplemental lighting/ besides the LEDs on the fixture. Could I cut my light to 5 hours a day and just run the white and blue LEDS a little longer?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14467036#post14467036 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by plancton
again, what happens when the bulbs get older? should the photoperiod be longer then?, cuz I have the impression that with less intensity and changing spectrum because of the bulbs getting older would need more time to absorb the light.
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when the bulbs get older they should just be changed, longer hours of the wrong spectrum i am sure would be more detrimental the helpful..just be sure to acclimate to teh new bulbs...
 
I cut back my MH photoperiod from 9 hours to 5 hours and to be honest with you I can definitely see a world of difference in the corals, the colors are were the first thing I noticed it had a positive impact on
 
i am joining the shorter photo period club now. nicer colors and a lower electrical bill? can't beat that. i've added actinic supplemention in order to increase my time to view the tank and am going with 2 hours actinic only, 6 hours halide only, 2 hours actinic only and i might have my moonlights on for a couple of hours before and after the actinics for my viewing pleasure also. it will interesting to see the results.
 
There was a good article on this sometime ago. Basically, if I remember correctly, the gist of it was that corals in the wild can only absorb so much light for a few hours. After that, the intense sunlight actually does damage and the corals dedicate a certain amount of their metabolism each day repairing what the sun has done.

If my memory serves me, this would give shorter photoperiods a lot of merit.
 
I used to run 12 hrs of T5 supplemental lighting, and 10 hrs of MH. I changed my lighting setup, removed all supplemental, and now run MH for 9 hrs a day. Its been a few months now, i have not really noticed any growth changes. Its still early, i will post any changes.
 
Is there any changes regarding corals coloration?



<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14478340#post14478340 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rouselb
I used to run 12 hrs of T5 supplemental lighting, and 10 hrs of MH. I changed my lighting setup, removed all supplemental, and now run MH for 9 hrs a day. Its been a few months now, i have not really noticed any growth changes. Its still early, i will post any changes.
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This is a great experiment! We need to get some "now and then" pictures from guys doing this. I am going to throttle back my MH photoperiod too. I think I'll keep my actinic suppliment the same for viewing reasons and fish behavior.
 
What's the thought on this topic and MH watts though? I run a 150w Radium over my 39g/20" deep tank. Guess I thought I would have a longer photoperiod than a 250w/400w in order to achieve 'coral saturation'. Am I thinking correctly or do SPS absorb light more on a time basis?
 
I use Mh 8 hours and actinics 10 h.
I don't know if short period is better for growth and color.
However, a lot of reefers when photograph their corals use (the day before) 24 h of lights and then colors are more bright!
So, other reefers extend their photo period to 12-14 MH and more with actinics.
 
did you mean that some reefers run the halides for a whole 24 hours before taking pictures?

or did you mean they leave the lights OFF for 24 hours?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14478902#post14478902 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jbird69
This is a great experiment! We need to get some "now and then" pictures from guys doing this. I am going to throttle back my MH photoperiod too. I think I'll keep my actinic suppliment the same for viewing reasons and fish behavior.
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Can't I just show a picture of my electric bill? :)

Honestly though, for me I switched tanks, different flow patterns, different lights, so while I see some tremendous differences, I don't know if I can attribute them to the photoperiod. However what I can say is with my reduced MH photoperiod I'm not seeing any adverse reactions.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14479387#post14479387 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
did you mean that some reefers run the halides for a whole 24 hours before taking pictures?

or did you mean they leave the lights OFF for 24 hours?
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Run the halides for a whole 24 hours before taking pictures. Usually when they must edit photo in a forum the sps become more colorful and bright :eek1:
 
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