Cloudy days

[jospear]

Just wondering if anyone is imitating cloudy days on their reef tank. Like leaving their lights off for a couple days to give your corals a break from so much sun light just like nature. We all know it's not sunny every day. Just would like some imput.

 

[Anonymous]

Well not really to simulate cloudy days but from what I hear some do use a 2-3 day blackout every 30 days or so. To help prevent cyano.

 

[Len]

I don't think corals need the break. Total lights out will probably do more harm than good, but you can try varying the amount of white lights/halides throughout the month. But I've never read or experienced "light overload" for corals and doubt corals could benefit from cloud simulation.

 

[Anonymous]

I suspect even cloudy days over reefs may well be much brighter than our lowly attempts to recreate sunlight.

 

[Sea Turtle]

Evertime I have gone to the tropics it was sunny.

 

[Anonymous]

I suspect even cloudy days over reefs may well be much brighter than our lowly attempts to recreate sunlight.

Depends upon depth of the corals (in the ocean)... whenever someone tries to pull that argument on me I just say my corals are from deeper in the water

 

[Anonymous]

Evertime I have gone to the tropics it was sunny.

It usually rains @ least once a day in Hawaii

 

[Anonymous]

I was lucky, I was there for 10 days straight, 3 on Kauai of all places! The only rain I noticed was one morning the ground was wet.

I seem to remember one of the LEDs (or was it a controller??) had some cloud pattern intensities dialed in or something, Solaris?

 

[Anonymous]

I have heard of folks using clear LCD panels that go solid when electrical current is applied to simulate clouds.

 

[Anonymous]

I have two sets of MH on my tank, both 250's 10 k and 20 k. Both are set not to come on one day a week. Not sure if they sometimes do it on the same day.