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Re: Staggered lighting, was (Re: [APD] Amano's AGA demo)




I ask about this every 5 years on the net. So now it's
a good idea? For 20 years it's been "uh...".

Ironically I was rewiring my lights this week to only half the
fluorescents (a bank of 8 over 6 20's turned sideways) come
on for 6 hours around "noon".

Is there consensus on photoperiod these days? 12? 16? does
it matter?

I think most people are using something in the 12-14 hours range. I use 12 hours myself and have pretty good results.


If you have several lights on your tank already with separate ballasts, then it would be easy to try staggering their "on" times. You wouldn't need any fancy controller either -- simply using two or three timers would work fine, with one timer set for 14 hours or so with a little light, another set for 4-8 hours in the middle of the 14 hour range running more lights, and maybe a third level if you want to get ambitious. I doubt there is any benefit from having more than 3 levels though, and would be surprised if anyone could scientifically (that means *real* research!) prove there is much, if any, advantage to staggering at all.

If you like the look of the staggering then there is certainly no reason *not* to try it. I just don't think staggering is going to improve tank health any.

-Bill



*****************************
Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator

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