Lights too bright... for me

[Banana Man]

Forget about the fish... it's me who cant handle the lights! I just setup my ATI Sun Power 6 X 80W Dimmable and at 100% i nearly need sunglasses to sit in the same room as my tank. I can see the tank from way down my street let alone sitting beside it.

Would it be possible to counter this by doing a lighting routine like Blue for an hour up to 50% then an hour later start white and red up to 50%. Then gradually increase to 100% for maybe 4 hours and then reverse the process. My concern is i want the tank lights on in the evening but not so bright that everyone in the house can have their dinner without needing sunglasses. Would Corals be affected if the light intensity was only at 100% for half of the day?

Also, if it naturally gets bright where i live at 7 in the morning is it ok to run my tank lighting routine from 11 in the morning or should it relate to when natural light is in the room? The fish might have a hard time dealing with natural sunlight and then the aquarium lights as their day would be too long?

 

[Sakura2282]

I think you don't have to run your lights at 100% if that's too much for you. I cannot graduate my lights, but I don't believe you have to do it. You can turn your blues one hour before your whites and turn them off the same way.

My blue LED's turn on at 9:00 AM, then my white LED's turn on at 10:00 AM and then the whites turn off at 7:00 PM and the blue turn off at 8:00 PM.

If you have some kind of controller to make yours go stronger during certain period of time during the day that would be awesome. I think you can have them like that for 3 to 4 hours, but if you have to do it manually, if I was you I'll just keep them at 50% always.

 

[Banana Man]

I have the ATI Dimmable Module which let's me programme 2 channels with 10 different time settings. I have set it up that the 2 blue come on at 10 and gradually increase to 25% by 11. I put the 3 white and one purple on at 10:30 and go to 25% by 11:30. At 14:00 I put everything up to 50% and leave them like this until 17:00. Then I do everything else again in reverse.

I'll see how the corals do on this setup for a while. I have a shallow tank so I'm hoping 50% for 3-4 hours will be enough!

 

[Sakura2282]

I have the ATI Dimmable Module which let's me programme 2 channels with 10 different time settings. I have set it up that the 2 blue come on at 10 and gradually increase to 25% by 11. I put the 3 white and one purple on at 10:30 and go to 25% by 11:30. At 14:00 I put everything up to 50% and leave them like this until 17:00. Then I do everything else again in reverse.

I'll see how the corals do on this setup for a while. I have a shallow tank so I'm hoping 50% for 3-4 hours will be enough!

It sounds good IMO. :thumbsup:

 

[ErinCahir]

@Northstar24 would be a good person to ask. Send him a pm.

 

[Northstar24]

Running LEDs like that should be fine, my schedule is similar. Mine start sunrise at 9 am, and over the next 4 hours ramp up to 100 percent, at 4 pm, I start a sunset that ramps down to the moon cycle at 10 pm