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kmtfishchannel 
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 Topic: Lighting hours
Posted: February 17 2016 at 9:02pm |
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I'm going to ask what maybe a dumb question but i'm sure everyone has an opinion. How many hours do you recommend running your lights in your Reef tank?
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Fatman
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Posted: February 17 2016 at 9:30pm |
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Mine run about 11 hours. They start low and ramp up over an hour to peak and ramp down during the last hour. I'm running them at a about 45% on the blues and 40% on the whites.
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kmtfishchannel
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Posted: February 17 2016 at 10:05pm |
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Also I'm running a 6 lamp t5 fixture non-dimming. So if you have a fixture similar to mine, then what do you do?
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bstuver
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Posted: February 17 2016 at 10:08pm |
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I would think start at about 8 hours. I run mine about 11 hours as well but my t5 is dimmable so it ramps up and down for a few hours.
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Jackie Stuver
"wait these aren't the happy Hawaiians oompa doompa godly heaven on your face zoas? I dont want them then. lol!" Ksmart
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kmtfishchannel
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Posted: February 18 2016 at 10:11am |
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Another dumb question would it hurt anything for me to run my lights for like one hour in the morning and then 7 hours later in the day?
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: February 18 2016 at 2:44pm |
Many of us run the blue lights for 12-14 hours daily but have the white lights come on in the afternoon until an hour before we hit the sack with the blue lights on for the last 1/2 hour or so. The blue part of the spectrum is what they need the most of, as seen below.
I wouldn't want to have bright light wake me up in the morning for just an hour. These coral animals have zooxanthellae algae in their tissue that just gets started doing photosynthesis when there is enough light. I wouldn't interrupt it after it has just started.
Aloha, Mark 
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bur01014
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Posted: February 18 2016 at 9:22pm |
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actinics or a bank of 2 bulbs 10 hours max, rest of bulbs 8 hours max.
Your tank will do just fine with 6 hours total light.
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: February 19 2016 at 8:50am |
A agree the coral can survive on 6 hours of light. I come at it from a coral grower approach  so that's why I like 12 hours of light, just like the sun in the tropics. 
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christhjesus
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Posted: February 26 2016 at 8:07pm |
Blues on @ 230pm white on @ 4pm and white off @8pm and blue off at 930pm. So, 4 hours of white and 7 hours of blue. I had an issue with cyano before I lowered the time down to what it is at now. I think I was running around 12 hours for white and blue. I didn't really experiment with different lighting times though. I just decided on these times because I get home at 230 and usually go to sleep around 930.
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