The Fonz

Hey everyone. I have 2 clown fish, a blue tang, a pearlscale butterfly fish, a flamehawk and a long tentical anenome. I just got a coralife 4 ft Mh fixture off eBay. I don't know how long to leave on the the halides a day or actinics. So far I have the actinics from 8am - 8pm. And the halides 10am - 2pm. And then moonlights all night. Any thoughts I don't know if this setup is right I just guessed. I'm also thinking about getting coral down the road. Will this schedule work for them too?
Thanks

sgould

I'd extend the halides to around 8-9 hours on and back the actinic down to 9-10 hours. Of what you have now, the anemone is the most light sensitive, though long tentacles are more of a moderate lighting anemone than other varieties. Simply meaning the MH should be more than enough for it. MH is going to be sufficient for just about any coral you decide to keep. In fact, if anything you will need to watch adding low light corals, which would need to be placed under overhangs in the rock to shade them a bit.

MizRamzi

Hmmm could someone please explain about the lights again to me? I have a biocube which has the lights and still I don't quit understand how they work. Which one's for what? Except for the moon lights, I got that one

agsansoo

@MizRamzi, what we want to achieve is natural lighting of the ocean's reefs. So we start at dawn with actinic lighting, then to simulate high noon we use white lighting, then at dusk we use actinic lights again. Of course at night we use moonlights.

MizRamzi

Thank you so much! Now why couldn't my LFS explain this to me just as simple?

harpua2002

Yes, since your Biocube has a separate power cord for each PC bulb, you can use timers to simulate a daylight cycle (actinics turn on first, then daylight bulb, then daylight bulb turns off, then actinics turn off last). You could also use a timer for your moonlight if you want, but I just ran mine 24/7 since LED moonlights consume so little power. It got a little crowded behind my cube with the timer and external ballast... I had mine on the kitchen counter under the cabinets.