How often should my aquarium light be on?
by Aquaboy on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 | 5 Comments
I have 4 angelfish, 3 bala sharks and a pleco and was wondering about the aquarium light. I have heard varying reasons to have the light on or off, so are there any real guidelines to running the aquarium light? The tank is in a moderate light area (Some sunlight from across the room, but no windows near by).
Thanks!!
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I have my freshwater tanks lights on for @ 8 hours during the day.
Most tropical fish prefer equal amounts of light since the are located near the equator. I have mine set on a timer for 12 hours per day.
You forgot to specify the most important thing: if you have live plants or not.
If you have, between 8 and 12 hours, depending on: how many plants you have, what kind of plants (this is very important), what kind of lamp you use and what power it has (also very important), if you use fertilisers or CO2.
You can buy special plugs that you can program to switch your lights on and off automatically, they are highly recommended and they are not expensive.
If you don’t have any live plants, you should switch the light on only when you are watching the fish, otherwise you have big chances to get a lot of algae
just during the day, when you are turning it on turn the light in the room on several minuits before and when turning it off turn off the room light a few minuits after
hope that helps =]
I have found that the most successful conditions are to use a day and night cycle. Some use 12 hour cycles and others use the theory that when it’s day, the lights are on and at night they go off. I’ve always used the latter with excellent success.