What's the best light cycle?

[Vorog]

I know that it depends on what you have in the tank, how new the tank is, ext. My tank is a little over a month old... Still new and cycling. I have read 6-8 hours a day and no more than that. But I have also seen people run 9-11 hours a day and no issues. I'm just curious what you guys run, and what your suggestions are for me to run? Also my tank is in my bedroom, so even after my tank is asleep. My computer monitor stays on. It is not direct light, and my desktop tower is on the side of the monitor so it blocks a lot of it from the tank. Does a low light in the room (about as much as a night light ambients) still cause issues?

 

[snake1]

I have my Blues on 10 am to 10 pm
my uv and pinks and atinics on from 9 am to 9 pm
my Whites on from 11 am to 8 pm
my moon lights on from 7 am to 10 am to start the day


my old lighting 2 months ago was
blues on 12pm to 10pm
pinks uv atinics 1pm to 9 pm
whites 2pm to 8pm

since I have added more time to the lighting schedule I have way more coral growth but you have to have good water quality so you don`t have a lot of algae growth to come along with a long light cycle

 

[rogergolf66]

Start on the lower end and watch the corals. Slowly increase 15 min per week and see how the coral react. If they start bleaching or turning pal cut the time back 15 min and stay there. The more intense the light is the less hours per day. If the light is under lighting the tank 11-14 hours can be fine. A tank should have 8 hours of darkness every day.

 

[MrHarvard]

What type lighting, livestock, do u run a fuge? Rogers comment is a great place to start! I personally like ramping up throughout the day (sunset sunrise) with short periods of intense lighting (2-4) for a total of 10-13 hours. Fuge lights and PH Should Be Taken Into Consideration As Well. Post more info and more direction will be given.

 

[Vorog]

I was using current orbit LED's. Set for about 8 hours. Then moon light for 2. Now I have T5 lighting. And it's set for;
10am-atinic on
11am 10k on
5pm 10k off
6pm atinic off
7 moon light led on
8pm moon light LEDs off

This has been running 2 days. I'll give it a few days and try leaving them on 15mins more each week like you said. My tank is non-drilled, and I do not run a sump. (HoB filters, and skimmer) I will be upgrading tanks in the near future to a drilled tank. I'd like to run a fuge then too!

My corals are;
Frogspawn
Hammers
Torch 2x
Trumpets
Tree leather

Fish I have;
Maroon gold strip x2
Six line wrasse
Flame angel
Kole tang
Goby
And CuC
The fish seem just fine with the lights. The corals are doing great. But I did notice some green growing on the rocks. So that's why in cutting back on my lights. Also it is a new tank so I have some nitrates and phosphate levels. I'm not over feeding, and I have phos ban going which helps.

 

[Vorog]

My moonlights actually turn on 5 mins before the actinic lights turn off for the night. *quick edit* lol. But should be plenty of down time for the fish and tank to rest. Just curious if my computer monitor is an issue?