reducing reef lighting

[Theo]

HI GANG. I presently have a 65 with 4 110 watt VHOs. My photo period has been going from 7 am to 11 pm, thats 16 hours. I'm moving to a new house soon and am thinking..........budget. By reducing photo period I'm hoping to reduce the electric bill a little and by not having to replace the lights as often. I realize the photoperiod is long in comparison to most out there, so here is my questions. I realize answers are going to vary but by how much can I reduce the photo period? I already started recucing the lights by one hour, having them come on at 8am insead of 7 so when should my next hour be knocked off, in a week? Thanks for the help folks.

Joe

[kevinpo]

IMO 12 hours is plenty.

Regards,
kevin

[Playfair]

Where did you get a number like 16 hours from? There isn't a natural reef on the planet with much more than 12 hours of direct sunlight...

[fgto250]

I only have Softies and lps so this may not apply but, I have 4 55watt pc (10K) and 3 40 watt no ( 2 03, 1 10k) and only run the pc 5 days a week (8 to 12 hr a day). For three months I have not noticed any slow down in growth (except for alge on the front glass)

[Jeff B]

Theo,

I think your plan of 1 hour per week sounds reasonable. I've always thought that reducing the lighting (photoperiod or intensity) was less problematic than increasing it.

jeff

[Theo]

Well playfart!...........OK! so its something I never thought of.......ok. when I first started I wanted the lights on when I went to work for morning feeding and I wanted them on at night so I could look at my beautifull reef before I went to bed. thats just what it ended up as. I only feed once a day now, poor things. :D

[Capt.Dave]

You might not be saving as much electricity as you think. If you reduce the photo period by 4 hours per day, then the formula would be something like this:

4Hours x .3kw(icecap 660) x $.10kwh(what I pay for electric) x 30 days = $3.60 per month

You can plug in your own electric cost. Personally, I don't think it is harmful to run VHOs for 14 hours per day.

Dave

[Theo]

Thanks, once again for the hepl folks.

[Little Reefer Boy]

I don't know if this is healthy for the corals or not, but I remember someone on the boards said he split his lighting periods...like 4 or 5 hours in the morning and the same later at night. He mentioned that as long is it got the total 10-12 per day it shouldn't matter. Again, I don't know if this works, but maybe someone else does.

[jgadbois]

If the lamps are not all on the same ballast, you could stagger the times they come on/go off.

2 lamps on at 8am off at 7pm
2 lamps on at 9am off at 8pm

[Theo]

No everything is on the same ballast so I think I'll just reduce the lighting an hour a week until I get to 12 hours a day and keep it at that.