zer0cool99
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Been lurking in the PAR meter threads and I gotta push back on the whole numbers obsession. Not saying PAR is useless, but I think most people are optimizing the wrong variable.
Here's my n=1. 60cm tank, Chihiros WRGB II running at like 55%, CO2 at 25ppm, EI dosing. For months I ran an 8 hour photoperiod because that's what everyone says. Plants were fine but algae was relentless, and growth was honestly mediocre. On a whim I dropped it to 6 hours (with a 30 min ramp on each end, so really 5 hours of full blast). Within three weeks the algae basically stalled out and my rotala started pearling harder than it ever did at 8 hours. Same light, same ferts, same everything.
My theory is that people crank PAR to fix growth problems that are actually photoperiod or consistency problems. A 6 hour window at moderate PAR beats a sloppy 10 hour window at high PAR almost every time, because plants can only process so much light before they start leaking organics that feed the algae. And the ramp matters less than people think. Sunrise/sunset effects are nice for the fish and for you watching the tank, but a 1 hour ramp is basically 1 hour of low-light photosynthesis that the plants don't really need.
I'm not saying go buy a $30 lamp and blast it 12 hours. But if you're sitting there staring at a PAR chart trying to decide between 120 and 150 umol at substrate, maybe just cut your photoperiod by an hour first and see what happens. Free experiment.
So what's everyone actually running for hours? And has anyone else found shorter beats stronger?