Hello There

[The Nun]

Hi There,

Long time reader, jsut recently stopped mooching off of you guys and signed up.

The first question i would like to trouble you guys with would be the best sort of lighting times to configure my tank to. I have a Aqua Marine 900 but im keeping freshwater tropical fish. This means the hood has a blue coloured light. I was wandering what the purpose of this light is and how i should incorporate it into my lighting schedule

I look forward to hearing from you guys,

Nun

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the fun With the lights if the blue ones are a marine setting they are to help certain corals grow but in a FW tank if you put them on a night it will encourage nocturnal fish to come out like some catfish and plecs etc.

What fish do you keep

Wills

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the active part of the forum Nun.
The blue lights are for things like corals. If you do not have any corals in your tank, they are a waste of electrical energy.
I am in the US so your particular tank is one that I don't know off hand. Do you have an indication of the volume and basic layout of your tank? That would certainly help me understand your situation.
A typical lighting situation is simple to state. The amount of light you find that is useful to a planted tank is light with a spectrum less than about 10000K in spectral characteristics. Your blue light does not fall into that range so it is treated as no light at all as far s plants are concerned. It can give interesting lighting to your fish, in a range we would not normally see.
Why not replace that unsuitable light with a lamp with a spectrum close to 5000K? That way you would have a useful light in a range that can be related to plants or fresh water fish.

 

[The Nun]

Well my tanks all maturing at the moment so currently i dont have anything, im hoping to have a largeish group of neon tetras, other then that im not sure.

As for my tank its a 175L tank, and heres a pic, ignore the bits of plant floating around on the top ive succesfully fished those out

 

[OldMan47]

A very nice looking tank you have there. If you like the blue color and will only have fish in the tank, there is no reason to change the bulb. If you have a focus on live plants, the blue bulb interferes with getting enough of the right light spectrum into the tank. Plant people seem to always be fighting to get enough light for their plants, so the blue bulb would be a negative for them. Useful lights for plants are in the 5000K to 6700K range while noontime daylight is right around 5500K (the approximate temperature of the sun's photosphere).

 

[The Nun]

I have another question too, I have acquired a siamese fighting fish which every couple of minutes swims to the top of the tank and takes a breath of air before blowing a few bubbles as he descends back into the tank, now my other fish are not gasping for air at the top and i have an abundance of plant life so im wandering what it could be

 

[OldMan47]

A Betta splendens has a labyrinth organ that he will use to absorb atmospheric oxygen, almost like a lung. If your betta is swimming around looking OK, don't worry about all the runs to the surface. If he starts hanging out near the surface and blows a big mound of bubbles, he is feeling good and thinks he's ready to breed. A bubble nest means nothing to you unless you are ready to take on the rather difficult task of raising tons of male fry each in its own separate jar. The females can all be raised together but some will turn out to be males and will also need to be separated while they are all growing to sale size. I would completely avoid betta breeding until you become quite experienced.