Aquarium lighting schedule

[Fro]

Hello,

I have a 250l Fluval tank with aqua sky lighting. My tank houses neon tetra, guppy, kuhli loaches, pearl guarmi, otos and glolight rasbora. I have some valisneria too.

I have the following light schedule. Does this sound good? I am getting quite a bit of diatoms (brown Algae) on rocks and wood plus green algae on gravel and glass so thinking of reducing the light by a couple of hours. What do you think?

11pm to 7am - no lights
8am - blue 5% only
10am - blue 5% only
12:30pm - red 70%, green 60%, blue 100%, white 100%
7pm - red 70%, green 60%, blue 100%, white 100%
9:30pm - blue 100% only

Thanks
Chris

 

[Aiken Drum]

Similar to mine. Its fine.

Reducing light will encourage brown algae, increasing light will encourage green algae. Green algae is easier to control than brown algae, brown algae usually clears up on its own given time.

If you have light and nutrients you should expect some algae.

 

[Fro]

Thanks. I’ve had the brown algae for 8 months or more so I don’t think it is going to magically clear up

 

[Aiken Drum]

It might do. It normally clears up when the silicates from your substrate and the surface of the glass gets used up. They also feed off high nitrate and phosphate, so increasing water changes will help. Over time green algae will out compete brown algae if you have higher lighting.