How long to leave tank light on?

[nigel123]

How long to keep my tank light on

 

[jglover]

It depends, what's in your tank?

 

[Animag771]

New here as well, but I think it also depends on how much light you have and the height of your tank? Might also want to consider how much natural light your tank gets. I'm sure they experts will pop in and have some better answers for you.

 

[Glene20]

I leave mine on for 8 hours a day at most. What fish u got. Some fish might prefer less light. Plus your room may be well light during the day anyways

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[jglover]

I had been doing 12 hours a day as I needed to build up a bit of algae for the otos and the BN pleco. My tanks are also both planted so the plants needed the light as well. I'm probably going to cut back to 6-8 hours once I get a rough idea on plant growth versus algae.

If you do not have any plants, then a few hours in the evening and when you want to view the fish should be sufficient.

 

[Animag771]

I keep mine on a timer which keeps the lights on for 9 hours a day, but I have pretty low lighting and the curtains stay closed all day. I have seen a few sites say anywhere between 8-10 hours a day for planted tanks. One site mentioned also having a 12 uninterrupted period of darkness daily, but I'm not too sure of the importance of that.

 

[jglover]

Most tropical fish will be from the equatorial regions where days are generally always around 12 hours in length. Maybe you would do an uninterrupted period for breeding or some such specific purpose but I doubt it will matter much otherwise. I have a ramp timer on one tank so I get a fifteen minute dawn and dusk each light cycle, which is supposed to be les stressful for the fish.