How long do you keep refugium lights on?

[Aeb1419]

I think this has been up for debate. From what I have heard having the lights run during your main lights off hours help stabalize pH, but I have heard that this actually doesnt help.

I also heard having the refugium lights on 24/7 is not a good thing as macro needs to rest and having the lights on all the time is a bad thing.

What do you guys do?

 

[horseplay]

I run reverse cycle for 16 hours but PH still swing quite wide between 8.31 and 8.15. Not affecting corals though.

 

[art13]

i do a reverse cycle as well, from 8pm to 8am, ph is still going to swing, mine will swing less once i get everything settled in. 24/7 is not good as the algae goes through a phase at night where it uses oxygen as well, i'm not sure the specifics, but i'm sure you could look it up.

 

[greybolt03]

I've always run mine 24-7

 

[mnat]

We run ours about 12 hours and opposite of the main lights. We ran an experiment (we left the timer switch on the on position permanently by accident) for a few months and did not notice anything too bad. Our fuge was growing out of control and we got some hair algae growing amongst the macro which was a bit annoying.

 

[Bloodman]

24-7

 

[myrjon]

I run reverse cycle for 18 hours .makes algae scrubber do great things.

 

[Hawkeye]

When i had chaeto - i kept it on a reverse cycle.