shorter photo period = faster growth

 
Bravo Marc that purple bugger in the middle seems to have exploded in growth.

While I have similar success with a shorter period, I couldn't attribute to the lighting simply because I changed tanks, tank dimensions, etc, but after this, I think I can say "Yeah lights definitely played a hand in it.
 
for those of you who think you achieve impressive colors.........

I recently cut my halides back from 9....to 5.5, I run 10k 250 w reeflux and LIII's. Yes I know a little drastic, but I wanted to do the less light experiment, and if Im going to do it...I might as well do it and start low, I will taper it up from here as needed. I really dont care about growth per se at the moment, thats not why Im doing the experiment, Im doing it becaseu I am only super pleased with about 1/3 of the colors in my tank. Its been a month now, and now I am only super pleased with 1/8 of the corals in my tank. lol

I am assuming this loss is to be expected at first, and If I want to give the experiment the best shot possible, i need to just relax and let it ride for another month or two before I start to up the light some

thoughts??

does anyone think I should have started lower than 5.5 hours, and that I should shave some more off now to get the most out of the drill??
 
Another thing you guys experimenting with this can do, is put a "nap" in the middle of your lighting period. The side benefit of this is much less nuisance algae.
 
i recently put my lighting closer to my tank and increased my photo period.... no bleaching but not much for growth either. i am running 12 hour on my t5's and 10 on MH. i am gonna cut back to 8 hours on t5's and 6 on mh and see how it goes.
 
Im nost sure about the "nap" thing. I dont really like the idea of dual photoperiods to be honest, besides nuisance algae is a non issue. If it was an issue, I may not even be considering messing with my photoperiod as I do think it is at least in part related to available nutrients and what I am not pleased with, in my case anyway, isnt necessarily the color of my corals, but the shades of many are simply lighter than I would like them to be.
 
Funny thing Bill, is that many reef keepers aspire for pastel coloration. :lol:

One thing to try is a different spectrum. I have noticed that under the 20K lamps most colors are very vibrant and in most cases a bit darker than what I have seen under 14K. When you look at Ace's (hobogato) tank, using sunlight reveals a different color as well. I do note that any reflective tissue on my fish is accentuated by the 20K lamps in extremely neon blue. That's why my ABT looks so wicked in person. And with corals, the colors just "pop" under the 20K.

The thing is, for most tanks, you might have to up the power on a 20K to get the PAR. This thread seems to point to that not necessarily being the case. Anyway, that's why I went with the 1000W lamps in 20K and I can tell you from my experience, I certainly did photo-inhibit my corals.

BTW, a "nap" is tried and true for controlling nusisance algae, at least in the respedct that it interupts the photosynthetic cycle enough to let you get the upper hand. You still have to remove the source of nutrients, but the nap knocks it down in the mean-time.
 
thee may b soemthing to the kelvin thing, I run straight 10k reeflux. i h ate blue and like to see true color. Some corals of mine are as dark and colorful as any you have ever seen regardless fo lighting. A bubblegum milli and the O tort are a couple of standouts that always catch peoples eye as looking insane for me and ones I am pleased with

Anyway.........who knows.......I am going big here soon and will have the luxury of doing something fun like a mix of three of my reeflux and a couple of 20k radiums, and see what that can do for me.

in the meantime, more poop and lighting experiments. :D
 
its hard to tell based on the wording used by many but is this only if you are running MH and T5 or does it apply to running strictly t5 as well.
 
In some cases, T5's have the same or better par as MH, so if you've got the wattage.... I would think it would be the same for both. Let coloration of your colors tell you if they aren't getting enough light. But like the theory goes, we really do bake our corals leaving them under such bright lights for so long when they get very little overhead light in the wild.
 
ok....I cant take this any longer :)

Its been over two months, and my colors suck. the vibrance is simply gone in most and I dont see it getting any better with time

I am going to start ramping back up. How much exactly is to be seen and I imagine I will end up at least somewhat shorter than I was.


BUT,.....in the process of doing this drill I did learn a few things as well as did succeed at getting a couple corals in particular to turn a pretty decent shade of brown on me which is good and progress IMO. They were somewhat bleached and unhealthy. They now have massive PE and are in a strong position for me to start playing with their positioning in order to get the colors back to where I know they should be.

I learned that some of my corals would be better off in a different position in the tank than I had them. Some higher and some lower. Not all corals lost color. Some do in fact look better than they did before although very few.

I learned that a short photoperiod does not work with my current sps keeping philosophies and how my system currently operates. Although Im pretty sure that in another 2-3 months my tank will look better than had I not done the drill and i will most likely end up shaving some time off when all said and done
 
Last edited:
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15226233#post15226233 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by flyyyguy
ok....I cant take this any longer :)

Its been over two months, and my colors suck. the vibrance is simply gone in most and I dont see it getting any better with time

I am going to start ramping back up. How much exactly is to be seen and I imagine I will end up at least somewhat shorter than I was.


BUT,.....in the process of doing this drill I did learn a few things as well as did succeed at getting a couple corals in particular to turn a pretty decent shade of brown on me which is good and progress IMO. They were somewhat bleached and unhealthy. They now have massive PE and are in a strong position for me to start playing with their positioning in order to get the colors back to where I know they should be.

I learned that some of my corals would be better off in a different position in the tank than I had them. Some higher and some lower. Not all corals lost color. Some do in fact look better than they did before although very few.

I learned that a short photoperiod does not work with my current sps keeping philosophies and how my system currently operates. Although Im pretty sure that in another 2-3 months my tank will look better than had I not done the drill and i will most likely end up shaving some time off when all said and done
Click to expand...

How long has your tank been up? What was your photo period before? Do you have any pix?
 
no pics. Just my words. :)

I have been working on a little aquascaping project for a long time now I am still not quite ready to unveil it. It is a little unique and I dont want to share any of it until its finished.


I was running my 10k 250 w halides for 9 hours when I started. I cut them back to 5.5 for the first month and then whacked another hour off of that to 4.5 for the last month. I just today added 15 minutes and will continue adding 15 minutes a week until I feel its time to stop...or until I think i went too far and will back it up some.

Tank has been up a year and a half or so...although granted it was a rough year and a half. A tank failure one month and a move to a different state the next back to back late last year didnt do anything any favors although losses were minimal.
 
Yeah, I have 3x250 MH and had cut back to 5 hours each in a staggered method (#1 on at 7, off at 12; #2 on at 9:30, off at 2:30, #3 on at 12, off at 5). I must admit that I liked the affect of the "sun" moving over the tank, but my colors became dull pretty quickly--and most of my corals are pretty near the top of my tank since my rock is very pillar-vertical scaped.

Am checking in periodically though to see others results.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15226408#post15226408 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 32flavors
Yeah, I have 3x250 MH and had cut back to 5 hours each in a staggered method (#1 on at 7, off at 12; #2 on at 9:30, off at 2:30, #3 on at 12, off at 5). I must admit that I liked the affect of the "sun" moving over the tank, but my colors became dull pretty quickly--and most of my corals are pretty near the top of my tank since my rock is very pillar-vertical scaped.

Am checking in periodically though to see others results.
Click to expand...

you really aren't using a 5hr photo period......

I have had awesome growth with all of my coral since changing to 6hrs. I have just noticed colors are starting to change and it has been about 2mo.

I would suggest waiting longer if you're not seeing the results yet...if there is one thing you need in this hobby it is patience
 
Growth was fine, seemed to be at the seem rate. I have a lot of frags, which for me is the easiest to visualize growth in--but the colors were really getting drab. They've already rebounded after going back to all on at same time for 9 hours.
 
WOW! i keep my lights on waaaaaaaaaay too long! 400w halide
at 13 hours a day, no wonder ive got massive algae problems
that rates a 10 on the DUH! scale :p ive got to get a timer pronto! ill slowly cut it back to about 5 hours a day and set up for actinics to supplement.
 
I was running 10 hrs MH with 4 hrs T5 for months then down to 8 hrs MH for another few months till now 6 hrs MH. I noticed excellent growth (SAME growth) on either 10hrs or 6hrs so now I have been running 6 hrs MH for the last 6 months and everything looks great! Wife is happy because my electricity bill is much smaller too. lol.
 
I went from 10 hours down to 6 hours and the results were very good. I stayed at 6 hours for about 4 months. But since I didn't know for sure if it was just the photoperiod that was getting the good results, I decided to slowly go back up. Things again got even better. Im now at 11 hours (past month) and this seems to be about the best the tank has ever looked.
 
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