Light interruption

[bsaastad]

I would like to do some maintenance on my light hood and wanted to know how long I can safely deprive my corals of artificial light. Is three days safe? Would it help to feed the LPS corals first?

Corals
--------
Hammer
Bubble
Xenia
GSP
Mushroom

[MCsaxmaster]

Three days will be just fine. In fact, it will probably not cause any noticable impact. I'd go ahead and feed all your corals--but I'd be doing that anyway. These organisms are designed to be able to go a few days (or weeks) with very little light (there are cloudy days sometimes).

Cheers,

-Chris

[bsaastad]

I'd thought about the cloud cover scenario, but it seems there is still a LOT of light in various regions of the spectrum that manages to make it through the clouds. Maybe not enough to sustain photosynthetic life for very long periods (think end of the Cretaceous!) but it's significantly more than whatever indirect light filters in through the windows across the room :-)

Thanks for the info. The answer seems reasonable and is what I expected, but reading this forum emphasizes how much trouble you can get in very quickly by making assumptions with an artificial reef environment.