What exactly ..

[starfishprime]

How do you determine how long your lights should be on? There are no corals yet but I'm about to set up my timer just so it has a set schedule. Its a 38 with two T5s 36w each. Unfortunately the actinic and daylight bulbs operate on the same switch so I can't do an hour or so of actinic before and after the daylight turn on and off. I may try to bypass that somehow though, but back to the original question how long? thanks

 

[fibinotchi]

8 to 12, shorten if you start getting nussance algae. You can go as low as 6 to 12 for fish only, and should probably do 10 to 12 for reef, once you have coral.

 

[btldreef]

Originally Posted by Fibinotchi
http:///forum/post/3237123
8 to 12, shorten if you start getting nussance algae. You can go as low as 6 to 12 for fish only, and should probably do 10 to 12 for reef, once you have coral.

You may want to start out with less light and gradually increase to find what works best for your fish and coral. Every tank is a little different.
Don't worry about the actinics and daylights being on the same time. It's not necessary for them to be on a separate times. For the past month or so my 14G hasn't even had an actinic because the ballast went bad, my fish and corals didn't care that the daylight shot right on without the actinic first.
I keep my daylights on for 9 hours (I have MH) and the actinics on for 12 (they on 1.5 hours before and after the daylights as well as all day with the daylights). When I had T5's, I had the daylights on for 11 hours with 45 mins of actinic before and after the daylights as well as all day with the daylights.

 

[starfishprime]

great, I am starting to also see the start of some GHA, so I guess some turbo snails will be needed, I'll prob stick with 1-2 since it's so early

 

[bizzmoneyb]

i leave mine on for about 8-9 hours