Aquarium lights

Factual Questions
1

So, my lights are set to come on from 6am to 2pm (8 hrs), but I’m here for maybe the 6am-8am stretch, if I’m lucky, I might catch the 1-2 stretch. I could set them for 8am-4pm, in which case I’d never see them in the mornings, and I seem them MAYBE for a few hours in the afternoon.

Is there anything wrong with splitting the time the light is on?

I have planted aquariums, so the 8hr light is necessary for the plants, but I don’t know if it’s steady light (I have the special plant bulbs for them, though, and I give them flourish tabs, and they seem to be doing great and I don’t know if the light they need must be 8 hours of steady light or not.

I have no idea whether the fish care when their light is on, as long as they get fed.

I just set their lights from 8 hours steady, to six hours in the morning (5am-9am), and in the afternoon, from (3m-7pm). Their tanks are away from natural light when they are off, but I open a light in the kitchen for a few hours daylight in the early am if I am home.

Is this ultimately hurting them? they get the same amount of daylight, just in spurts.

They’re domesticated after all, ans so far, doing fine, The Corys are even breeding in the tank. I traded some back to the set store for my choice of &12 cash, or $50 pr fish.

2

That’s what I intend to do as well. I’m about to start in the hobby and I’m reading up in the meantime.

From what I gathered it’s done by a lot of people, exactly for the reason you described. The fish don’t seem to mind and as long as the plants get enough (and not too much) light it shouild work fine.

3

Ah. If you are setting up your very first aquarium ever, from scratch, I have some advice: ask a friend who already has an established one to give you the used filter material from their filter, and run it in yours for about a week before you put any fish in yours. This establishes the biome. If the tank is too sterile, the fish won’t make it.

My very first aquarium took forever to establish, and I lost a lot of fish. My second and third ones (even though I was using RO water in one of them), I ran used filters from my established aquarium, and didn’t lose any fish.

I also put some Seachem Stability in the new ones, and I’m sure it helped, but running used filters is the best thing.

4

I’ve been reading up for a few months, so I think I have an idea how to start.

Once I can put the tank in its spot, I’ll run it 4-5 weeks without fish to let the biome settle, see how the plants and water parameters go and generally get used to maintenance. I have some highly regarded aquarium stores in my vicinity that I can rely on. The last one I visited was a kind of co-op where the owner grilled me to make sure I knew what I was going into.

Still there’s a lot to take in, so if you think I’d miss something, feel free to share. :slightly_smiling_face:

5

When I used to keep planted tanks, these guys were my go-to resource. I bet your specific question has been asked and answered in their lighting forum.

You don’t say how sophisticated your set-ups (lighting, CO2, nutrients…) and what you are growing, but for most planted tanks I imagine what you propose would be fine.

6

I’ve been keeping fishtanks for >25 years, so I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. But I’ve only recently started getting into fully-planted tanks; I set up my 50 gallon planted tank about a year ago. It’s low-tech meaning I don’t use a CO2 pump or anything like that, but I do use Flourish root tabs. The livestock includes neon tetras, sunburst platys, 3 small angelfish, and about a half dozen amano shrimp.

I have my lights timed to come on from about 2 pm - 10 pm, so that I can enjoy them in the evenings. However, I’ve read that it’s not only fine to break up the light cycle during the day; it’s actually even better for the plants. I don’t remember the exact schedule but I’ve seen hobbyist recommend schedules like four hours on, four hours off, four hours on, twelve hours off. I won’t swear to it but I belong to several planted tank groups on FB and this is often recommened (although people will debate about anything in those groups).

7

Good to know. Thanks to everyone who replied.

I have an RO aquarium, and a tapwater aquarium, with two bottles of Walmart Spring water and two of distilled water added across the water changes, to compensate for my VERY hard water.

I used a combination of RO water and distilled from Walmart (the supposed RO water from Meijer is very hard, and high pH usually. I put a very small amount of alkaline buffer in the distilled water, and add them 4:3 (3= RO drinking water; 1= distilled); in the tank when I do either 5 gal (weekly) or 20 gal (goal is every month-- sometimes it is every six weeks) water changes. I suck out the gravel in different places, so as not to get too much of the biome at one.

If the nitrate levels are high, I add extra Prime and I also add stress guard, plus I put in some exzymes. Clears up in a day, and them I so a 25% water change, with a change of the bigger filter afrer the first day. I also use Seachem gravel in my filter, which helps a little, albeit, not a lot. The stress guard and the prime work better.

If ammonia is high, and water change doesn’t help, I do an ammonia fizz tab, and put an auxiliary water wan at the bottom of the tank, near where the plant was.

Right now, have a 37 high (not for breeding), a 29 conventional shape, for the corys and tetras. The tetras had their rummy noses lees noticed, If she can do a payment paln, or accept payments over thime, that what I’ll me, but the Shabbat honors go on. Malky is coming on leave soon, and then will be discharged if he does not voluntarily extend. There are going to be lots of late not fate nights with the with.

Both are planted aquaria, but the plans seem fine. He small voice isn’t commanding enough to lead a small boat in a H-on-Hand slice and dice?

Glad I’m not the Last Say.

PS: You would be proud of Eric.

8

You lost us there. :thinking:

9

That is a very strange mishmash of things from my clipboard and things I was emailed from other people, that I cannot blame on my cat.

This is the third or fourth time someone has gotten a weird email from me or I’ve posted something weird, that consists of clipboard plus recent email content (and recent email content can get on the clipboard if I have replied to something).

I am going to stop using this particular laptop, and see if it continues with a different when I use a different one. I obviously have a problem somewhere, but I don’t know where. I may need to reload the OS onto this computer.

10

Ooooohh-kayy cuz I was a lil worried about ya there for a sec.