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LED light that has true dusk to dawn built in (1 Viewer)

ArcKatana

ArcKatana

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I don't really care if it can grow coral, I need it more for the fish. Let me restate that - I don't want to grow anything but macro algae in this tank.

I don't want a hard ramp, but a slow steady increase and decrease.

Any ideas? Tank is a 75G, and I'd like to keep it under 300 total.
 
Any thoughts about just adding a lunar sim module to whatever light you want? I guess you probably aren't running an Apex, but just an idea

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Have you looked into the Radions? I have 2 on my 90 gal and they do sunrise to sunset with moon phases.
 
Since you mention needing it for fish and not for coral, this is what I use: https://www.chewy.com/current-usa-orbit-marine-aquarium-led/dp/133047

They are probably bright enough for macros. I currently have mine at 30% just to light up the tank. I was doing 60% but had too much algae growth with how much I feed with lax maintenance. My sensitive eyes couldn't handle 100%, but they aren't coral bright or anything.

You can program a 30 minute ramp for both the white and the blues for whatever you want, plus have a moonlight that is on for a few hours. I have mine ramp the white in the morning, and in the evening as I fade out the white, I fade in the blue at the same time, then I immediately ramp down the blue - that gives me a 60 minute evening ramp before switching it to moonlight. I programmed it that way because I don't like blue lit tanks like most do.
 
Current USA Orbits work very well for FO tanks. Very programmable and affordable. Even can simulate weather/lunar effects if that's what you're looking for.
 
I have a current orbit marine. The light is great at Sun up and Sun down effects. mine actually grows corals quite well. The price is also great. They always seem to go on sale on Black Friday.
 
FigiCube is a local company run by a team of husband and wife engineers (Will and Sara). Very nice people.

They have designed and are marketing some really nice Kessil-style lights that can be set to ramp up when they turn on and ramp down when they turn off. Supposedly the ramping up period is about 45 minutes, and the ramping down period is the same. These lights are less expensive than Kessils, and they have gooseneck mounts for them.

You program each light unit individually with a small simple controller/programming box that you connect temporarily with a USB cable. The light unit then remembers on its own when to go on, and when to go off (and when programmed like this they ramp up when they go on and ramp down when they go off). Or, alternatively, you can set them to just be turned on and off (no ramping) with an external timer (a normal timer that you would provide yourself). Maximum light level and color are set manually using two knobs, one of which controls white light intensity, the other blue.

I bought a number of these, which I have experimented with a bit but have not set up yet. My plan is to use some of these for sunrise/sunset effects on our new big tank. The current plan is to have one at the east end of the tank positioned at sort of a low angle to have an early morning effect with long shadows. Once they are ramped up other lights will take over. Then the opposite will happen at the other end of the tank in the evening.

Though these are nice lights with a lot of light output, on this tank I'm really just using them for this really cool dawn and dusk effect, simply for aesthetics. On a few other tanks though I plan to use these as the sole lighting for the tank (e.g. on my tank for upside down jellyfish - Cassiopea).

I've seen these in use as the sole lighting on a reef tank in Will and Sara's home - two lights set up on a large reef tank - and the tank looked very nice (with nice healthy corals, showing nice fluorescence).

These lights would be very convenient for your purpose, since you would not need an APEX or other controller to have them go on and off automatically, or to ramp up and down.

This is the light I'm talking about:

https://www.fijicube.com/products/maxxtech-s-200-led-reef-light
 
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