Sun movement lighting schedule? anyone done this? How does this set up look?

[MoshJosh]

Thinking about a lighting schedule that "mimics the suns movement in the sky". . . Will have lights ramp up and down from left to right using 3 separate lights. Thinking 5 minutes ramp up to like 75%-80% (each light will come on 5 minutes after the last). Then gradual ramp up to 100% mid day (or maybe a little brighter than I would normally run to account for the ramp up), then ramp back down. . . see below.

Probably first light on at 0800, all lights peak at 1400, last light off at 2000. 5-10% blue only until 2200.


Thoughts???

 

[John Bolden]

Very interesting I have thought about this definitely with a half ark and a motor on a screw. A little bit off track but I have seen some strange coral growth patterns from a farm in a green house growing coral.

 

[Dburr1014]

I used to do this with my MH back in the day. One on, few hours overlap with both on, then first one off.
Don't know if it really did anything.

 

[o2manyfish]

I've done this using Metal Halides and eventually LED's. The lights start from one end of the tank and slowly turn on towards the other end of the tank and turn off in the same order. When I had halides the difference from one light to the next turning on was 45-hour.
Then after last lights out I had 5 or 6 moon lights that switched on/off over the period of 28 days to simulate moon location.
Did this make a difference..... Well it's got a COOL factor to it, but to say it makes a difference is hard. My current tank has the right end up against glass doors that faces east. So the right side of the tank starts getting light at dawn. The left side of the tank doesn't start getting light till 1pm (10' tank so there is substantial difference from one end to the other).
Currently because of my hatred of Mobius I have not been able to control the 12 Radion G6 Pros to turn on/off in procession.
But there has been no distinct differences in corals from one end of the tank to the other.

Dave B

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I did this with gen 1 radoins. Had all the lights run the same schedule 20 minutes apart. It was a neat look, but the hard part was anytime I needed to make a change in spectrum and time, it was 4x the work.

I eventually chalked it up as a novelty and put all the lights on the same schedule.