Shawnie

Hi everyone!! Happy St. Paddy's Day

I was wondering if I could get opinions on how long during the day, you leave on the lights in your tanks....Is it good or bad? at night, I always shut them off...

roxanne

the recommended is eight hours a day no longer(algae)... i cut the lights on during feeding time (morning) then cutting them back off as soon as they are done eating. during the day my tanks get enough natural light... after it gets dark i cut the lights on for a couple hours and feed them again cutting the lights back off as soon as they are finished ... with the kids always here on the computer the overhead light is always on...(with the exception of 12:00 till 6:00 am)
my plants are doing fine so there is evidently enough light getting to them...

SereneReyn

my lights are left on probably longer than they should be... 12ish hours, most of the time... i turn mine off at night as well, i don't bother with a timer.

Shawnie

ty roxanne!

COBettaCouple

At most, we leave them on 12 hours a day.

Shawnie

ty muchly! I just love watchin them whenever im home but didnt want to hurt them with all the light

COBettaCouple

Is the tank where they could get natural light part of the day? If so, you could take advantage of that and run the tank lights just when the tank doesn't get natural light for a total of 10-12 hrs. We don't really have that option for most of our tanks, but it would be nice and we try to duplicate the sunlight with sunlight-spectrum FL tubes.

GreenMan13

I read that some people have them on during the night from like 6-8pm to like 4-6am. This way they get to see them in the evening while they are home. But these need to be in rooms that get little light during the day so the fish get some night time. A room in a basement is where I think all of these have been.

Most keep there lights on from about 8-12 hours. The fish are pretty relaxed about how much light they get I think but plants and algae care a lot. I have mine on for about 12 hours from 9am-9pm. I might lower that down to 10 hours though and move it to something like 12 to 10pm.

Halibut

I turn them on in the morning(7-8) and off at night before bed(10-11) sometimes I'll turn them off earlier like around 9. They are probably on too long but I havnt yet seen algea so not planning to change at this point.

Butterfly

I run my lights 10-12 hrs a day. The plants love it
Carol

King_Snuggles

i run my lights for 11 hours a day its on a timer