Light timings

[ember04]

Simple one how long do you leave your grow lights running, Ive got a 28 litre with a 8 hour on cycle but intrested to heard best pracate to see if i need to increase or decrease my timing

Thanks

 

[bgarthe]

I am no longer much of a plant growing aquarist, but your 8 hours depend on factors such as light intensity, depth of water, and water chemistry (mostly pertaining to algae issues). 8 hours of low lighting will have a much different impact than say, 8 hours of higher level lighting. Back when I did do plants, I let my plants tell me about duration and intensity. No….they didn’t orally chat w me, but gave indicators like appearing to reach for light/getting thin and stringy/leaves even veering away from light. And it also depends on the type plants one has as to how much or how long to provide light. One of the several reasons I no longer do plants is because now I need not concern myself with lighting for plants, have fewer algae issues, and can set lighting to lower levels to actually bring out more color with some species of fish.

 

[10 Tanks]

Simple one how long do you leave your grow lights running, Ive got a 28 litre with a 8 hour on cycle but intrested to heard best pracate to see if i need to increase or decrease my timing

Thanks

Hello ember. If you're like me, you're growing tropical plants in your fish tank. Tropical plants are used to longer hours of daylight, so I have my tank lights on a timer set for 12 hours on and 12 off. I remove and replace a lot of tank water each week, so I'm not concerned with there being too much food in the water for algae to get too well established. I do need to scrape a little off the front glass every couple of weeks or so. I let the algae grow on the other sides and it seems to stay under control as long as I keep up on my water changes.

10

 

[Magnum Man]

my tanks have been running on my schedule… my sun rise background lights come on, at 5:00 am… I turn the main lights on, and off around my schedule, typically on, at 5:30 am, and off around 9:30 pm, and sunset lights go off about 11:00 pm… I have some tanks, that are so shaded by overhead plants, that I have no algae in them, and a few tanks, that need scraping once a month, so it really just matters how you set them up…

 

[GaryE]

Much depends on what plants you have. I have a room full of tanks, and most have different timer settings. Generally, I hover around 12 hours daily.

 

[ember04]

ok perfect Ill increase the time up to around 12 hours thanks