Lighting Question

[jcdj]

Hi on my tank I have 2 lights one for daytime and the other for night time (blue) how long should I leave them on for, I did a search and only got what light should I buy type results.

Cheers

Jay

 

[fatheadminnow]

Do you have any plants in the tank?

If you have plants, then I would start out with 8 hours of light for the day, and a couple at night with the blue.

If you do not have plants, then turn the lights on whenever you want to. If there is enough ambient light on the room during the day, then there is no need to have the lights on, especially if you are at work and there is no one home to see the fish.

Then, just turn the lights on in the evening, and maybe have the blue light on a hour or so before you go to bed. There is no need to keep the blue light on all night.

-FHM

 

[Theplayboy]

There is no need to keep the blue light on all night.

Is it harmful in anyway or any problems if you were to leave the blue light on all night?

 

[fatheadminnow]

There is no need to keep the blue light on all night.

Is it harmful in anyway or any problems if you were to leave the blue light on all night?

I don't see why it would be, but I would not do it. I think the fish will appreciate a nice dark aquarium to sleep, plus it will save on the electric bill.

-FHM

 

[waterdrop]

I agree with FHM, I would try to give them a nice blacked out night most of the time but I certainly wouldn't worry about if I accidently fell asleep and forgot to turn of the moonlights for a night or two. I would just try not to make it a regular thing.

I disagree about starting at 8 hours but I don't know how to describe how I would make the decision about it. There are just some tanks that start up (somehow I want to say its the people with harder, higher pH water but I know that technically shouldn't make a difference) and seem to work well with plants and don't tend to get algae. By contrast there are tanks (and again I want to think they are the softer, more acid tanks but it shouldn't matter and obviously wattage of light matters) that just seem to have a tough time with plants and encourage algae.

The tanks that "work well with plants" seem to take 8 or even more hours of light with ease, whereas the tanks that "don't want to work well" just seem to get significant algae and give plants a hard time unless they are started out way down at 4 hours or something like that. Technically we know from Dave and Aaron and Truck et.al. that this should all just be about trace ammonia, light wattage and light hours but somehow I keep feeling like somehow there are other things.. (I probably just don't have enough discipline and experience.)

~~waterdrop~~