Actinics

[subz88]

How long do you have yours on for during a 24hour period?

[Tangman]

Hi. I have mine on for about 6 hours a day, they come on first then go off last at the end of the day with the main lights in between. HTH. Eric

[subz88]

Hi. I have mine on for about 6 hours a day, they come on first then go off last at the end of the day with the main lights in between. HTH. Eric

Hi Eric, how long do you have your mainlight on for each day? What sessile inverts do you keep ?

[berns]

actinics on 12 midday to 12 midnight

halides 2pm tp 10pm

[liquidlogic]

do actinics add to the clearaty to the water ?

[subz88]

There's a few reasons people use actinics:

1) Blue light penetrates deeper than any other visible light in water (it has the shortest wavelength of all the visible light colours) and any corals that naturally live greater than a depth of 3ft will have adapted to use light at the bluer end of the spectrum. Eric Borneman talks about corals having better growth rates under blue lighting.
2) Dependent on the colour temperature of the halides or fluorescent lights you use, they might look predominantly pink and yellow (the higher the K rating, the more blue the light looks). A lot of people prefer their tanks to look more blue, and achieve this using actinics alongside the halides/tubes.
3) The ultimate for me, is that a lot of hard and soft corals produce pigments that fluoresce under actinics, which is visually stunning for that last hour or so at the end of the evening.

I keep mine on for 12hours a day, with my white lights (2 x 250W halides) on for 8 hours in the middle of that. I was just wondering how that compared with other peeps out there...

[robbie]

Same timescale as yourself only halides are 2 x 150's

[Dal]

On the time side of things I always think you have to get as close to nature as possible! stimulate the same lighting time they would have on the reef ie dusk to dawn if you get what i mean. The way i do it is my moonlights come on then 30 mins later the actinics come on then an hour later three 150w halides come on then when they 8 hours later go off then another hour the actinics go off then the moonlights stay on for an hour then they have a dark period. This is as close as I could get IMO. hope this makes sence and helps!
cheers Dal

[berns]

trying to reproduce the lighting of a natural reef is i think only the tip of the iceberg as to coral growth/colouring/performance etc..... let me explain my thoughts

your reef diving and come across a nice colourful sps acro or similar and close by is another similar coral, infact it may very well be the exact same species that has migrated in some way from the other but looks slightly different in its overall appearence/polyp size etc. this difference will probably be due to its slightly different placement within the reef, ie it maybe slightly overshadowed by something or receiving a different flow pattern because of surrounding structures etc etc. their ability to look/change is to suit their enviroment,

a way to show this difference if you were to frag a nice size colony into say 20 pieces and put them in 20 different reef tanks you may find after many months of growth they could all look different, some may be similar but there will be lots of variety in looks/growth rates etc all from the same one coral.

now add to that the collecting and transit of them which apart from obvious stress they will be receiving are then placed in darkness regular durring this period you find by the time they reach the lfs tanks for sale they not look as they were on the reef, bleaching/browning etc, i think the sps lovers realise all this and thats part of the attraction/challenge, to see how they fare in their own tanks.

as far as lighting goes reproducing night and day cycles and giving the biological requirements (eg high calcium levels etc) is the easy bit, how you want your latest sps to look is out of your hands.

like i say just my thoughts:)

[tonyponty]

mmmmmmmm very intresting

[liquidlogic]

very intresting indeed :)