How Much Is Enough / Too Much / Not Enough Light

[stoneagedinosaur]

Hi people (and relevant fishies)

I have an Aqua One Aquastyle 850 that has three lighting tubes that I am running for 8 hours a day with all 3 tubes on... (2 white, one pinky) It maybe a bit naiive but, do I needs em all on all the time?

I've noticed some green algae threads growing on the inside of the tank - would reducing the light by using one less whit tube stop that increasing or would it be to detrimental to the plants in there?

There's probably other threads on this (topics not algae!) but I can't seem to find any - and it's probably in the lighting section but I can't find that either!

Cheers

 

[fatheadminnow]

Do you have any live plants in your tank? If not, then just turn the lights on when you are around during the day. There is no need to have the lights on if you are not around to watch the fish if you have no live plants in the tank. Unless the tank would be is total darkness with the lights off during the day, you really do not need them on at all.

Ammonia + light = algae. Sure, maybe reducing the light amount may reduce the growth of algae. But, if you still have a light source, you probably will get some sort of algae growth.

-FHM

 

[stoneagedinosaur]

Do you have any live plants in your tank?

From my piccy you can see that I have a few live plants, so they do need some light. I just feel it's a bit of a waste having em all on at the same time.

Is it aesthetic or...

 

[fatheadminnow]

Do you have any live plants in your tank?

From my piccy you can see that I have a few live plants, so they do need some light. I just feel it's a bit of a waste having em all on at the same time.

Is it aesthetic or...

Okay, tell me this:
What is the size of your tank?
And, how many total Watts of light do you have? Add up all the watts from all three bulbs.

-FHM

 

[stoneagedinosaur]

[/quote]
Okay, tell me this:
What is the size of your tank?
And, how many total Watts of light do you have? Add up all the watts from all three bulbs.

-FHM
[/quote]


Hi FHM

It's 165 L 84x58x44cm with 2 x 25W and one 20W = 70 Watts in total

 

[aly_starh]

Id say that its fine, you will only need the 2 /25w, but if you want to run the 3 then its ok. Maybe you could add more plants to the tank.

 

[stoneagedinosaur]

Looks like I'm gonna have to cut a few back as they're getting a bit algaed up! And on top of that I've found some freebie snails that have hitched a ride gggrrrrrr eating me plants too the buggers. Now, where can I get an assassin snail?

 

[fatheadminnow]

70 watts divided by 43 gallons, which is the size of your tank, and you would get 1.6 WPG (watts per gallon). This is perfect for a low-tech planted tank, so I would say keep all three lights going. Try to have them on for like 6 hours a day and see if there are any changes over the weeks.

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

Agree completely with FHM. I repeated the calculation and also got 1.6 watts/gallon and agree trying 6 hours total photoperiod (perhaps split between morning and evening hours with a timer.) With some liquid carbon this should do ok.

~~waterdrop~~