Originally Posted by jessica47421
oh i forgot and how long do you leave ur night lights on and ur days? how many hours each ?
First, let's make sure we're all talking about the same thing . . . are the bulbs of what you're referring to as a "night light" the same size/shape as your white lights, only with light blue colored bulbs? If so, then they're not "night lights" per say, meant to replicate night illumination, but blue actinic lights to augment the white lights and are meant to be part of the "Daytime" light cycle.
There are also LED "Moonlights" which cast a very subtle blue light into the water, replicating moonlight. There's been some debate as to whether these serve some benefit to the livestock, but they're typically used for allowing the aquarist to view the tank when the animal life thinks it's night . . . and there's often a lot of different activity at night.
As for timing, it's often dependent upon what you have in your tank and its light requirements, but lights on too long can encourage algea growth. Me, I have my blues come on around 2:30pm, the whites come on around 3:30pm (with the blues staying on), then the whites go off around 9:30pm, and the blues go off around 10:30pm.
Some folks leave their LED moonlights on all the time, or have them timed to come on when the other lights go out. I have mine set to come on around 10:00pm to around 12:00midnight, then come on again around 4:00am (so my wife has some tank illumination when she gets up) and then off around 7:00am. Is there any benefit what so ever of having periods of no illumination? I don't know, I just figure that in the wild, with the moon cycle and cloud cover providing some nights with no light, I'd go that route.
will my levels spike enough to kill my fish since i dont have my base rock in yet bc its still soaking?
There's a good probability that the ammonia could spike high enough to be fatal to the fish, although I don't think it has a lot to do with the baserock. Any die-off from the LR, as well as the decaying uneaten food and clownpoop will cause ammonia to form. By removing uneaten food and the doo-doo (a turkey baster works good for this, but get one just for use in the tank), you may be able keep ammonia from spiking really high, but it will form regardless . . and besides, you need ammonia to form to start the cycle which will eventually lead to beneficial bacteria forming in your tank to help keep it healthy.
but I do have some questions for you experienced salt water ppl. fist off i have a 24 hr lighting system that i have on timers what is a good amount of hours to leave it on for the day hours and what is good amount of hours for the night lights? i have them on timers now for 12hrs day and 12 hrs night is this ok or should it be different? the next question i have is i just set my tank up on saturday this week i let it run for 24 hours then applied the live sand then another 24 hours i had my water checked at pet store and they said all was good so i got just one fish till cycle is done but my fish seems very lonely he swims up and down tank like he is playing with his reflextion can i get another clown fish for him company or should i wait if so how long do i wait?
