Lighting

[Communitytank1]

Right here goes.

What is the average time that the lights stay on in a tank for. I did have mine coming on from 9.00am till 9.30 pm, which is 12 hours 30 mins. Is that too long. If so please advise. I will be having livebearers (guppies, swords and platys) togeter with a load of palnr for the babies to hide.

Thank you for your replies.

 

[thegnu]

i put my lights on at 3pm and off when i go to be at around 12-1 am so they are on for about 10 hours

 

[brads]

My lights go on at 8am-10am then 4pm-11pm. This seems to be ok for my tank (see sig) I don't seem to have to many algae issues. I have some fast growing plants which help with this.
A total of nine hours a day. Any less and the plants don't get enough light and any more and algae starts to appear. It's all hit and miss every tank is different. It took me a lon time to find what was best for my tank.

 

[Irf]

I've read that it's the TOTAL amount of light per day that is crucial for plants, whereas algae flourishes more when given greater than 4 hours at a time. Therefore I try to make my lights on periods less than four hours, with a minimum of one hour off periods in between.

Check in the Plants and Planted Tanks forum - many experts on this are in there.....

Irf.

 

[Underwurlde]

7 to 8 hrs per day for me. I use a lighting siesta, but TBH, I think it does sod all for combating algae.

Many 'pureists' adhere to a lighting schedule that matches the fish & plants natural environment & also like to bring their lights on & off gradually, like dawn & dusk - possible with two lights & two timers kind of thing.

Andy

 

[highfire]

I have just cut down the lighting on my new (almost cycled) tank from 8 hours to 6 hours a day, from 4.00pm - 10.00pm.
Algea is not too much of a problem at the moment - hopefully it will carry on like that.
My LFS have told me (and I think I read in PFK) that 6 hours is just about ideal.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

photoperiod depends on a lot of factors like the amount and quality of lighting and the age of your bulbs, the positioning of the tank adn if it gets any natural sunlight, weather you have real or fake plants and how many. so you'll never get a set answer that you should do a fixed number of hrs. however i think 12 hrs is too long, most people aim closer to 8-10.

 

[Communitytank1]

Many thanks for all your replies.