How long do I have to leave my high wattage light fixture on per day to feed my inverts?

Question

I have about 20 button polyps, a mushroom polyp, and a sebae anemone that need the light to feed off of. How long do I have to leave the light fixture on for? I have a 20 gallon tank, with a 130 watt power compact fixture. I am also not crazy into fish like they're my life, so please if you can, give me a reasonable time limit instead of some crazy people who want to leave it on all the time. Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

12 hours at the most. Never leave it on all night and day.

They need a Day Night Cycle.

Also before you turn on your aquarium lighting turn on a light in the room atleast 30 mins before you turn on the aquarium.

When its time after the 12 hours make sure you have anouther light on also in the room.

(all of that is more for fish than for inverts, you dont want to shock fish with no light then lots of light)

But if you have mutiple bulbs on your aquarium lightfixture that can come on at different times then just use them to do the "day night cycle"

12 hours is the rule normaly. try to do it the same time everyday and youll be fine.

Dont forget inverts eat need more than just light to surrive. Try some nice invert liquid food every 3 to 4 days to supplement thier diet.

Hope this helps

Answer 2

You should try to reproduce a natural lighting cycle for them. As tropical ocean inhabitants, the natural day/night cycle will be about 12 hrs. total lighting.

If your fixture has two tubes and one is a 50/50 or 03 actinic, you can do an hour of just that in the morning and at night, adding in the white (10,000K or so) for 10 hours to simulate a dawn and dusk. This would mean being available for four on/off changes, or two timers.

Answer 3

1 hour actinic
10 hours white
1 hour Actinic
Put them on timers for Dawn, Day, Dusk.