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For those running MH only.. how many hours? (1 Viewer)

sleeri said:
Ben, does the seasonal adjustment take place in summer? Only running 8hrs?
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Seasonal is based on sun rise and set in the tropics. It is about 12 hours on the first day of spring and fall. Longer in the summer and shorter in the winter. The Apex gradually varies the sunrise and sunset times through the year. My MH are set to run 2 hours less than that, so about 10 hours on average.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
 
If just switching to MH I would run them on for about 6 hours a day to start and then ramp them up slowly to your liking (I did mine over a two month span). I ran mine 10 hours a day in the summer and 8 hours a day in the winter. Now I have a LED fixture in the middle between the two MH and have them turn on earlier on and off later with only the blues running after the MH go off. This gives me a sunrise sunset look to my lights now.
 
I was thinking it was just to reduce heat in your tank. Following the seasons in the tropics sounds pretty interesting. Do you feel like it has a positive impact? I've had MH for a couple years now. Was just considering bumping my time up a bit.
 
During the led lighting talk by Sanjay, he mentioned two things among others, two relevant here... A gradual ramp up and down does affect fish health, they don't get startled when lights go on and there is no mad rush when lights go out.

Second maybe more relevant/important esp if ur into breeding he mentioned increased spawns when the lights simulate nature.

Never ran a mh only setup so not much to contribute except that I tried to dim them with several ballasts but did not like it much
 
I lost a wrasse about 2 weeks ago when my lights killed unexpectedly. Going from the ON to OFF suddenly was too much of a change for him, and boom on the floor he went... Granted I wish I had a top on my tank, it was a learning lesson. I try to follow the golden reefing rule of "slow and steady"...
 
sleeri said:
I was thinking it was just to reduce heat in your tank. Following the seasons in the tropics sounds pretty interesting. Do you feel like it has a positive impact? I've had MH for a couple years now. Was just considering bumping my time up a bit.
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Can't say for sure how much impact different things have on the corals since I have not systematically tried changing anything, but I am getting great growth and colors on all my corals.
 
I run my t5 for 12 hrs a day then the 250DE for 7 hrs and led moon light for an hour before and after the t5s go on and off.
 
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