Lights on or lights off

[Fishrfriend]

Hello All,
New to the hobby. I have a 100 gal tank that is only 2 months old. Only have 6 fishes no corals and 4 AI Prime HD lights. I have some chaeto in my refugium isump with a tunze fuge light that runs several hrs everyday. Currently, I have my lights on only an hr or 2 everyday. Someone advised me to hold off running my lights on a full schedule since......
1) My tank is fairly young and that the bacteria in my system are not quite stable yet
2) Since I dont have any corals, turning on my lights will only encourage algae to start growing
3) Only have fish and dry rocks so, lights are not very critical.
4) Why spend $$$ on elctricity running my AI Primes is not needed

Planning on adding corals in month 4 or so....any thoughts?

 

[BeanMachine]

Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

[joseserrano]

Fish don’t care, but if you should run the full lights. It will help get all the bacteria and algae’s to grow in larger numbers and be more established when you get the corals.

 

[reefsean]

Sounds like a good plan, but I would start running the lights on a full schedule a month before adding corals because you will still get some algae and bacteria blooms

 

[JustAnotherNanoTank]

Yeah agreed. I think you’ll want to get some algae’s going to know what you’ll be up against and be able to take action before having corals you care about in there.

 

[BeanMachine]

Bacteria doesn't need light to grow. Just food and oxygen. Since you have fish I don't think running your lights prematurely is a good idea. Get your system in order and be ready for an algae bloom when that happens. But they are right, either way you are going to get a bloom of some kind. So it really doesn't matter either way if your tank has already cycled. But I commend you for the taking the slow approach. Most would just crank the lights up, fully stock with fish and corals, then have problems. Taking it slow is the best approach especially if you are new to the hobby.

 

[Fishrfriend]

Thank you all for your taking the time to giv me awesom advise

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