TropTrea
New member
Years back I did some research on this with fresh water plants. What I found was that was a definate corelation between the amount of quality lighting and the time duration for optimium plant growth.
Generaly speaking if the lighting cycle was under 6 hours regardless of the quantity growth was a near minimium level. When light were on about 11 hours you could get away with the least ampount of quality light and still get very good growth. If ypou wanted to rate it in watt hours thius is probably where you got the most effecinecy in terms of growth/Watt-hours. If you increased the light cycls from 11 hours there was little gain from the 11 hour pount and actually when you started exceeding 14 hours you even started to see no growth at all on some plants.
Now the big key seemed to be which chemicals the individual plant were using for photosynthesis. Some chemicals liked particular wavelenghts better than others as well as actual quality of life. What would cause actual burns in some plants would be insufficient lighting for other plants.
Corals are very simular while they are not plants in themselves they depend upon internal plant growth to furnish them with nutrements. Yet the is wide range in lihghting needs, in nature some corals grow onlt a meeter or two from the surface while other flourish 100's of meters under the surface. Therefore there lighting needs vary considerably.
Generaly speaking if the lighting cycle was under 6 hours regardless of the quantity growth was a near minimium level. When light were on about 11 hours you could get away with the least ampount of quality light and still get very good growth. If ypou wanted to rate it in watt hours thius is probably where you got the most effecinecy in terms of growth/Watt-hours. If you increased the light cycls from 11 hours there was little gain from the 11 hour pount and actually when you started exceeding 14 hours you even started to see no growth at all on some plants.
Now the big key seemed to be which chemicals the individual plant were using for photosynthesis. Some chemicals liked particular wavelenghts better than others as well as actual quality of life. What would cause actual burns in some plants would be insufficient lighting for other plants.
Corals are very simular while they are not plants in themselves they depend upon internal plant growth to furnish them with nutrements. Yet the is wide range in lihghting needs, in nature some corals grow onlt a meeter or two from the surface while other flourish 100's of meters under the surface. Therefore there lighting needs vary considerably.
