Lighting Schedule

[desertdawg]

125 gallon. 2 percs, 1 yellow tang.
1 small mushroom
1 small zoo
1 small monti
1 medium RTBA
My wife likes to wake up with the lights on so here is what I setup for a lighting schedule.
65w x 4
2 10k
2 420
420's on at 600am
10k's on at 630am
both off at 800am
420's on at 130pm
10k's on at 200pm
420's off at 10pm
10k's off at 1130pm
Is it bad to have them on for just 2 hours in the morning?

 

[desertdawg]

Anyone ? .... Buelar .... Buelar .... Buelar

 

[racingtiger03]

thats a bit of an odd schedule. Keep in mind you really want to try to imitate the natural phasing of the sun. The actinics should come on for 1 hour before the daylights(10K), and the stay on one hour after the daylights go off. I don't know that I would be cutting them off and back on a few hours later like that. To give you an example; I have my schedule as follows:
6:30AM 460nm actinic on
7:30AM 10K daylights on
6:30PM 10K daylights off
7:30PM 460nm actinic off
My tank is in the living room, so that gives me darkness for movies in the late afternoon if I choose. And During that time I usually throw a dark sheet of some kind to give the tank its 1 hour of total darkness. (perhaps that is a bit much, but it can't hurt!) If you add moonlights at anytime make sure to have a 1 hour delay from the time of actinic off to moonlighting on as well. IIRC it's something photosynthetic corals require.
Typically you will want a solid 10-12 hour lighting spectrum though. The one I listed above just happens to suite my veiwing times best and gives me time to feed the fish before leaving for work and after getting home (8AM-5PM) they come to the top of the tank as soon as the door opens in the evening lol.

 

[desertdawg]

Ok so what if I run just the actnics for an hour or so in the morning:
6am to 7am?
Then go with the rest of my schedule?
The wife really likes to see it in the morning, but I do most of my watching or fiddling with it in the afternoon/evening.
Our tank is in the other living room and gets total darkness from midnight until 6am. No moonlights yet!
Maybe I just need to get moonlights then I can run the schedule from say 7am to 7pm then moonlights for awhile, total dark would still be until say 6 of 7am when it starts to get light...

 

[flower]

It takes coral two hours just to open completely. They can't feed unless they are open.
Looking at the times you want your lights on for both of you, my schedule may help.
I have my lights come on at 6:00am, actinic first but just 20 min before MHs. MHs stay on for 4 hours, actinic does not go off at all during the day.
My MHs go off for 4 hours (actinic only) then kick back on for another 4. So that is the "book" required 8 hours of bright lights. The actinic kicks off for the night at 8:00PM, ...at night I have moonlights on so my tank is never in complete darkness. I read that the reef never has total darkness...

 

[desertdawg]

Thanks for the info, I think I'm going to work with just the actinics on all day like your doing, and use the 10k's from about noon to early evening for a minnimum 8 hours....