Lighting...

[timmystood]

I'm starting to do some research on planting tanks because I'm getting a few more plants in my tank every week! and I just wanted to know about how much lighting you give your plants and tanks...

BTW - It's not very clear... on the second question 'YES' is for solid lighting all day and 'NO' is for lighting periods.

 

[Bloo]

5 Hours morning. 4 Hours break. 5 Hours evening.

But your second question is a bit misleading in terms of what people are saying "yes" to - as you asked two contradicting questions at the same time.

I voted "yes" to the latter part of the question.

 

[timmystood]

5 Hours morning. 4 Hours break. 5 Hours evening.

What about the fish? Surely that isn't natural for them...

 

[karlp]

I don't think the rest period works unless you have a pretty dark room. My tank receives quite a bit of sunlight in the middle of the day and I tried the rest period and I think it could even have made things worse, because I'd have the lights come on earlier in the morning to compensate for the 'rest period' and then the plants and algae would get sunlight during the 'rest period'.... if you can follow all that...

 

[timmystood]

Yeah - that's what I was thinking... because the room my tanks in recieves about 14 hours light - sunlight, tv, lamp etc. So even when the tank lights are off the tank is still getting light.

 

[Themuleous]

I have the first 18w tube come on at 10am, then the other two come on as 12noon. They then go off at 8pm with full lights out at 10pm. So I have 12hrs at 18w and 10hrs in the middle at full 54w. Its supposed to help simulate the increase then decrease in light intensity that normally happens during th day

Sam

 

[Bloo]

For those of you who can read German, I'm following one of the planted website's advice on managing light for plants and tanks

Dennerle suggests (roughly translated):

Mornings at least 4-5 hours light, afternoon lights off for 2-4 hours, afternoon/evening another (min) 4-7 hours light.

I know there are many different views on this, but I have healthy happy fish and plants, so not complaining

Or using a free web translation services (with some funny grammatical errors) :

Reduce the illumination duration of z. B. 12 hours on 10, 9 or 8 hours. Or yet better: granting you your plants and fishes a "noon quiet".

Proved self-following rhythm has: mornings at least 4 - 5 hours light. Then a dark recess of 2 - 4 hours. After that at least 4 to 7 hours light. During the dark recess, the basin should not completely darkened its (diffuse light of a 2 - 3 meter of removed window or a light bulb in 1 - 2 meter distances).
Algae do not like this "lunch break" obviously. Whether that lies, that the "primitive" algae less adaptable as the "modern" aquariums plants are, or whether an improvement of the Oxidations reduction-balance plays the leading role, not yet is cleared. Against algae, this method helps stunningly good. (In the first days after the transposition you should the O2- and CO2-Gehalt regularly measure and should adapt the CO2-Zugabe correspondingly. One needs usually somewhat less CO2).

 

[timmystood]

OK, i'll give that a go and see what happens... i've never had an algae problem in either of my tanks... mainly because of my plecos and formally my CAE. I'll let ya know how it turns out.
I'm just worried that it isn't natural for the fish.

 

[George Farmer]

I run 10 hours straight. Plants do not need 10+ hours lighting, simple.

I used to be a big advocate of a lighting gap for algae prevention/treatment but have now learnt that 10 hours straight provides me with better plant growth and therefore even less algae. I’m actually considering running less (9 hours) now that my glosso has established again.

A gap maybe useful for those already with algae issues, and possible those with lower lighting. The Dennerle principles are based on tanks with moderate lighting, CO2 and no NO3 or PO4 dosing. In other words they are not very high growth tanks.

In summary I would suggest running straight lighting to anyone with no algae issues.

 

[timmystood]

One of the problems I have is that I have no idea what Wattage my lamps are that light the tank.

 

[George Farmer]

One of the problems I have is that I have no idea what Wattage my lamps are that light the tank.

What type of lighting is it? How long are the tubes (if they are fluorescent) and what diameter are they? Most are 1" (T8), some are 5/8" (T5). There's also T6 and T12 but these are quite rare.

Tell us the length and we should be able to tell you the rating.

I assume there is no writing on the lamps themselves?

 

[timmystood]

No, there's no writing as far as I can see...
I have no idea what type of lighting it is!

If you click on 'my latest tank video' in my sig then you can see the lighting strenght in both of my tanks...

 

[zig]

I run mine 10 hours straight.

 

[timmystood]

Just found out my Wattage and now started a topic on why my plants aren't growing...

HERE

 

[lljdma06]

Just found out my Wattage and now started a topic on why my plants aren't growing...

HERE

I have algae issues, so I run mine with a siesta. 5 on, 2 off, 5 on. It works alright, still have algae. But that's not the light's fault. It's my fault, couldn't dose nitrates until now.