- What is the best lighting schedule for a reef tank?
Getting your lighting schedule set up optimally
for your corals, clams,
and other photosynthetic reef inhabitants
is definitely top priority
and it doesn't have to be complicated.
But before I show you
what a good lighting schedule should look like
and also give you a fantastic resource
for getting the best settings for your exact light fixture,
let's first look at why it seems to be complicated.
Modern reef lighting has evolved to LED fixtures
that are controllable,
most often with an app on your favorite smart device,
allowing you to change the intensity from 0 to 100%,
as well as the spectrum through granular control
of each individual color of LED.
You can create a complex and custom schedule
that slowly ramps up the intensity for a sunrise effect,
and then ramps back down for a sunset effect
at the end of the day.
You can even change the spectrum and look of the tank
throughout the day if that's something you wanna do.
The amount of control
that a lot of these LED fixtures provide is nothing short
of impressive,
but it is a double-edged sword
because if you don't know exactly what you're doing,
by playing around with these settings,
you can actually do more harm than good
for those corals in your reef tank.
So what should you do?
What's the right move if you wanna maximize your success
with your corals?
Keep things simple.
There are three things you're gonna wanna do
when you're setting up a light schedule for your reef tank.
One, pick a proven spectrum that grows corals
and fits your goals.
Two, use the 1-8-1 ratio,
and I'll explain what that is in just a bit.
And three, pick the right intensity for your corals.
Picking the right spectrum is actually the easy part.
Most app-controlled LEDs will have a number of presets
that you can choose from so that you don't have
to play around with those individual LED sliders.
Instead, preview the various presets
that your LED light provides you with
and choose the one that looks best to your eye,
or if they have descriptions as well,
you can choose the one that best matches your reefing goals.
Once you've got the spectrum down,
that's where the 1-8-1 ratio comes in.
There's no 100% right answer
when it comes to how long the light should be on for.
Some of us run shorter light schedules than others.
Some of us like long ramp times,
while others prefer shorter ramp times.
Those preferences come from a lot of experience
with our individual tanks.
For those of us who don't yet have that experience,
the 1-8-1 ratio is a perfect starting point,
and you may never want or need to change it.
1-8-1 means one hour ramp up, eight hours full intensity,
and one hour ramp down.
What this looks like
for your light schedule is whatever time the light comes on,
it takes one hour to go from 0% to the maximum intensity,
then stays at that maximum intensity for eight hours,
and then takes one hour to go
from that maximum intensity back down to 0%.
This gives you a 10-hour light cycle,
which is right in the middle of the typical range
of 8 to 12 hours and a successful schedule
that many reefers, myself included, use.
The last thing
that you will absolutely wanna do when setting
up your light schedule is pick the best maximum intensity
for your particular types of corals.
To give you an idea of why this is so important,
if you were to put softies or LPS corals under a light
that is much too bright, they usually respond by bleaching,
which will often lead to coral loss.
If you put higher light corals like SPS
under a light that isn't bright enough,
they can brown out, lose color, stop growing.
And if the light is much too dim, they too can perish.
Reef lighting intensity or brightness is measured in PAR.
PAR basically measures how much usable light is available
for the corals to photosynthesize
from a particular light source.
A PAR meter is the tool that we use
to take those measurements, and when it comes to intensity,
we're looking for a PAR range of 75 to 150
for soft corals and LPS,
and between 200 and 350 PAR for SPS.
The ultimate goal is to have the majority
of the areas you'll be placing corals within those rages,
and you'll want to adjust the maximum intensity
of your light until you're right at the high end
of those numbers in as much of the tank as possible.
So what do you do if you don't have a PAR meter?
Well, that's where the incredible resource I was talking
about earlier comes into play.
It is a sort of practical reef lighting index
of all of the most popular LED light fixtures,
and covers everything from light placement,
recommended spectrum to maximum intensity settings
for both the softie and LPS ranges,
as well as the SPS ranges so you can get a very clear idea
of what you should set your maximum intensity to,
even if you don't have a PAR meter.
You can find that playlist right here,
just scroll until you find the video
on your specific light fixture,
and then Randy is gonna walk you
through all the most in-depth information on that light
so you can set it up for best performance.
Check it out.
(catchy music)