Lights On/off

[macksjay]

Hello should I leave my tank lights on all day and turn off at night. As at the minute we are only turning them on when someone is in the room and turning them off when we leave it. So the light might be on for an hour or two at any 1 time.

Do fish need 12 hours with lights on and 12 with them off.

We have only artifical plants. So no light is needed for plant growth

Thanks for any help

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I'd imagine keeping lights on during daylight hours will help your fishes' biorhythm. However, this may cause an algae bloom. I've and heard 8 hours of light is a good comprimise if you have no need for algae (which some fish and snails enjoy)

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with NOTG except to say that the number of hours of light that will get you below the algae problem level varies rather wildly for different tanks in different situations. Some tanks can need to see less than 4 hours of steady light (as opposed to 8) to keep them below the algae point.

The factors (we can speculate) may be the ambient light in the room, the average number of microscopic invisible algae spores coming in from the water supply in a given geographic location (or coming in on individual pipe lines within a single tap water supply system even) and finally, the degree to which there end up being small pockets of trace ammonia within the tank. The trace ammonia used by algae is down on the level below where our liquid ammonia testing kits say "zero ppm," so they aren't measurable that way. The factors are the filter and the overall tank circulation.

Anyway, you just never know in a given tank until it hits you, at which point you just have to back off the amount of light a little and try again (it can take months to know whether a change has really worked or not.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Fish do not require long periods of artificial light unless you keep them completely isolated from the real world. I have a fish room that experiences natural light during part of the day so I only worry about light timing for plants, not my fish.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Fish do not require long periods of artificial light unless you keep them completely isolated from the real world. I have a fish room that experiences natural light during part of the day so I only wiorry about light timing for plants, not my fish.

My lights are on 24/7.... both in the fish room and the showtank inside the house, which also get about 1 hour of direct sunlight in the afternoons....

I do notice however, that during night time, (when all is quiet)... all fish become inactive and just sit at the bottom of the tank.... I do not have an algea problem.