How many hours MH

[SCETT316]

I only have almost totally cured LR in my tank at the time. How many hours should I have my MH on for?
Thx
Susan

[Reef Engineer]

Susan,

If the only thing in your tank is the liverock, I would only run the lights for a short duration, 2-4 hours at most. There's no added benefit to running them any longer at this point.

Randy

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[SCETT316]

forgot to mention, those are the only lights I have so far on the tank at the moment.
Susan

[Ninong]

Susan ~

How about leaving your fixture on for about 6 hours per day until you are ready to add your first corals. This would benefit any photosynthetic life that may have survived on your live rock. You can increase your photo-period once you are finished with your cycle and begin to add livestock. If you're going to go with your present fixture alone (and at the height that it is presently above the tank), I would suggest 12 hours per day as a good target once you have corals in the tank. If you're going to add actinic supplementation, you could have that running 13 hours per day (even 14 hours per day wouldn't hurt anything).

Ninong [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

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