Zoas at Night

[saltnewb]

Quick question because I don't know.

At night time should my zoas be open or close? I use an LED light strip for "moon" lights. I can select between 16 colors and change the brightness to super bright to low light. Not sure if they should be closed or open at night.

Thanks,

 

[ChiCity]

Closed, unless you're using moonlights then they should be open

 

[ahiggins]

if youre running blues only, they will close.
The last hour of my normal light cycle runs blue/green/red/UV/purple (zero white) and they all start to shut for the night.

 

[saltnewb]

even with only blues, when they're turned up all the way, they remain open.

 

[Scubafrog]

I have a 29G Biocube and my zoas will stay open when I only have the blue LED moonlights on. They usually only close when all lights are off or something disturbs them.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

its the intensity of the light they respond to not the color.
And yes they should be closed at night.
Mine are on a very slow ramp up and down. and the corals respond accordingly.

 

[ahiggins]

its the intensity of the light they respond to not the color.
And yes they should be closed at night.
Mine are on a very slow ramp up and down. and the corals respond accordingly.

Weird! I always thought it was the blues! Lol good info as always

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Weird! I always thought it was the blues! Lol good info as always

try it out. if you can easily change the ramp settings its worth doing IMO. I have a crazy low amount of light for a little less than an hour on both ends.

 

[ahiggins]

I have a two hour ramp on and off and then hour ramps between settings. They blue only part is at 40% for the better part of that hour.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I have a two hour ramp on and off and then hour ramps between settings. They blue only part is at 40% for the better part of that hour.

One daly you'll get a meter(or do you have one?)
My lights for that last 45 are in the 400 lux(0 par) range and fades out. Thats also when my goofy ruby red dragonettets do the dance at night. barely enough to get a picture.

 

[ahiggins]

Huh cool.
I don't have my own yet but my buddie is letting me borrow his par meter so I can measure all my tanks during each period and in various places this weekend

 

[saltnewb]

thanks for the info @saltyfilmfolks i will go back to what i was doing, manually reducing and increasing the leds each morning and night. someday i will be able to have all the cool stuff for saltwater tanks, but it'll be for when i get my 90g going.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

No sweat.
I had all mine on timers for many many years.

It works just fine