Lighting period

[Green Baron]

I am curious how the rest set their lighting period.
I have a black out period between 11:30am to 5pm because I would like to look at my fishes/plants before I go to work and at night. So I set my lighting period from 7:30-11:30 and 5:00pm-11:00pm.

[tcy81]

i recently increase my lighting hrs from 9 to 10 hrs
from 10am till 8pm

[unicorn]

I set mine from 12noon till 6pm and 8pm till 10pm..

Cheers

[benetay]

I heard that it isn't very ideal to have such blackout period due the fact that in the wild , even under stormy weathers, the intensity doesn't drop to ZERO. Which means it's not relatively good for your plants IMO.

I read about it some where in a magazine before regarding photoperiod.

I set mine to 12hrs daily. It's best not to overshoot to 15hrs a day.

[mordrake]

blackout period, if you choose to have, should not exceed 4 hours.
read it somewhere that they call it "siesta" time.

[tcy81]

yup siesta period , i heard is best use for algae infect ... to get rid of them
maybe it help to prevent algae bloom also .... tis not very sure

[CT]

So is it better to have break in between.

mi currently light on from 11am - 9pm

[Green Baron]

[quote:45bdf263fb="mordrake"]blackout period, if you choose to have, should not exceed 4 hours.
read it somewhere that they call it "siesta" time.[/quote:45bdf263fb]
Oops ! Mine is more than 4 hours ! Will cut it down to 4.

[toledosun]

I've been playing around with my lighting period recently. I realized that when I leave my lights on for more than 8 hrs, I tend to have to have a lot of algae on the glass (the dusty type).

Just wondering, if you look at Amano's book, he talks of using only artificial light. In my case (& probably most of yours) our tank is likely to have a fair bit of indirect light from the windows (unless our tank is in a room with heavy blackout curtains). That being the case, unless we set our timer to coincide with sunrise and sunset, our effective lights on period is actually a lot longer than 10 hrs.

Take my case for example. Lights are on from 6-10 a.m. and then 6-12 midnight. That's 10 hrs from the lights but between 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., my tank gets a fair bit of indirect sunlight because the windows near the tank gets the afternoon sun so in all, the actual "total light" period is 18 hrs!!

so... when we're measuring "total light" period, should we take into consideration this "indirect" lighting period?

[vinz]

Yes, you should account for ambient light during daylight hours if your tank lights are not on. As long as enough light gets to your tank to make the plants/algae respond (by "waking up" and starting photosynthesis) you have to account for it. Other then algae growth, it can affect plant growth patterns, such as height and internodal length.

For my own tanks, they don't get significant ambient light until about 9am to 10am. I time my own lights to that.

I'm considering putting my lights on 2 timers. One timer for 12 hrs and the other for 10 hrs in the middle of the 12. On the 12 hr timer will be 1/3 of the lights and the rest on the 10 hr one. I'm trying to see if this might make enough difference to cut back some of the algae on the glass.

[toledosun]

let me know if that works. then I'll know what to do

[Flare]

I on my lights from 7am to 3pm. A total of 8 hrs. So far, after 2 months of setup, there has been no major aglae problems, except for a couple of green spot algae at the bottom of the tank. I, too, have read about breaking up the duration of the lights so as to discourage algae growth. Is it really true? Is a black out of not more than 4 hrs advisable? The main problem with my tank are the heat emmited from my lights. My using 4 nos of PL and 1 no of FL. The PL lights get really warm and I'm worried, touch wood, that it might catch fire one day. Better be safe than sorry. So I'm thinking of breaking up the lights to 4 hrs, rest 2 hrs, then 4 hrs again, a total of 8 hrs. My tank is situated in one corner so not much sunlight actually gets to shine on it. Any advise pros?

[BFG]

Your pl light casing, do you remove the plastic cover? Just remove it and the heat will get dissipated.

[PeterGwee]

Siesta is of no use in getting rid of algae...you are better off doing a complete blackout for a couple of days. After that, you'll need to correct the root causes of it (CO2 being a big one and then nutrients.).

Regards
Peter Gwee

[unicorn]

Hi Guyz,

As for the experince I had with my tank, I've tried running the lights for 8 hours straight and I bump into BGA problemnear the surface. I think its due to the intensity of MH lights that I'm using. Therefore, the break was much more an idel setting for me.

Firstly, the CO2 runs at 0800 hrs and ends at 1800 hrs. The lights will come on at 1200 hrs where there is no one home to admire the the tank. Anyway, the tank is located on the far wall opposite the hall window. Thereby a little ambient light will still get in. I also had a blind running down the center of my tank...(some may know)...Afte 6 hours, the lights turns off and turn on again at 2000 hrs where I'm home to admire the tank.

I have not notice any problem with the tank for about 2 years with this lighting regime. The 'bubbling' still occurs during the 2000hrs - 2200hrs light on period...

Therefore.. IMHO...I don't see any problem with the 'siesta period' if one have a grip of his own tank behaviour and needs...

Cheers

[toledosun]

yep, have to agree that I had less problem with my previous lighting regime (lights on 6-8 a.m., followed by 6-10 p.m.) then my current regime (6-10 a.m., followed by 6-12 midnight). Guess it's because I didn't take into account the strong indirect lighting that my tank gets between 12-6 p.m.

Just removed my covers and the bga (& glass algae) have all disappeared. Have reverted back to my old lighting regime. Decided that I'll rather not see the riccia bubbling and growing like crazy if that meant cleaning glass every day