I picked up a small green ricordia and a small clump of green star polyps last night.  Since these are my first corals, I need to figure out how long I should leave my lights on.  The lighting on the tank is this:

(1) 18 watt True Actinic 03 Blue straight pin
(1) 18 watt 10,000K Daylight straight pin
(2) 0.75 watt Lunar Blue-Moon-Glow LED

So how long should I leave the Daylights on, and how long for the Actinics?  And from what I've read, the daylights should come on first, then after a few hours the actinics, then the daylights would stay on for another few hours after the actinics shut off.  Right?

Oh and I got a firefish and a peppermint shrimp the other day too, hopefully the peppermint shrimp will take care of the hitchhikers that I believe to be aiptasia. 

I'm pretty new, so you may get better advice from someone with more experience.  I do know that you want actinics, all on, actinics so you are simulating dusk with that third stage.  I run a T5 over my QT tank, which sits near a 10' tall window, so I think I get an awful lot of natural light  but I still went with 1 hour actinics, 9 hours all and 1 hour actinics.  Others may do different things, but after reading, this was what I thought was best.  It worked for all but one thing for me, so its probably pretty close.

Oh so you want the actinics to come on first, and then the daylights?  I thought the actinics came on in the middle of the daylights.  But that makes sense.  I don't know how I could set that up though. 

Yes on the light order. 

I don't know anything about biocubes, so this may not work because my impression was always that they were some sort of all in one unit.  However, my light fixture has one switch for the actinics and one for daylight.  You put the plugs in timers to control them.  You can do that with the standard timers that you use to turn lights on and off at your house. 

Morgan, 36 watts is pretty dim for the rics.  the stars will be ok but the rics may or maynot do that well with that low of lighting. 

most folks who run actinics do it for one of two reasons.  One to make the more harsh 10,000 k white look more pleasing  and thus turn it on about the same time as the white bulb.   or two to simulate the rise and fall of the sun and thus have the corals that glow a bit pop out a little better for an hour or two before and post the growth light.  It is mostly for the owner as that wave is not a great coral growing but looks very nice 

my two cents for the evening 

Briney Dave said :  

my two cents for the evening 

 

You used "thus" twice in the same post....thats at least 5 cents in my book!

Maybe I should take that money and hire a proof reader

Dang, I thought I read that they would be ok in it.  What should I be looking for to show that it isn't enough light?  If nothing else, I'm sure I can find someone around here that would take them off of my hands

They seem to be looking good so far, but they have only been in the tank since Tuesday.  I did put them towards the top of the tank.  I took some pics today, hopefully I will get them posted tomorrow.  The GSP look great and have opened up. 

the stars will be fine with that.  I have some that open with the room lights from the classroom

the others you will need to watch.  There are plenty of low light corals out there along with those that don't need light at all.   So don't fret that you are out of luck or something