How much time for my lights

[jw1977]

I have the Nova Extreme Pro's. How long should I be running them? I was thinking 12 hours. One thing I'm confused about is do you leave the actinic lights and the other lights on at the same time or do you run the actinic for a while and then the other lights?

 

[apos]

12 hours sounds like too much, but need to know things like the depth of your tank, what you have in it, etc. All depends on the livestock, how close the lights are to the the livestock, etc.

 

[trigger11]

Originally Posted by jw1977
http:///forum/post/2453682
I have the Nova Extreme Pro's. How long should I be running them? I was thinking 12 hours. One thing I'm confused about is do you leave the actinic lights and the other lights on at the same time or do you run the actinic for a while and then the other lights?
12 hours is a bit long. Usually 7-9 hours is about right for the main lighting. Can either leave all on at same time. Or have actinics come on a little before the the main lighting to have a more gradual effect. I had VHO lights on my 55G and the corals seemed to like the actinic bulbs better.
FYI, A good rule of thumb with lighting is there will definitely be a period when they are on too long for your system which then promotes the growth of algaes. So just kinda watch out for that. If getting too much algae growth then cut back on the lighting time.
~Trigger

 

[jw1977]

I've got a 46 gallon bowfront tank that has a clownfish, a new firefox fish, cleanup crew, and cleaner shrimp. I've also got a couple xenia coral.