Lighting planted tank in intervals

[WeepingCrown]

Hello, I am new to this community!

So recently I setup my first planted aquarium (6.5 Gallon) with some dwarf Hairgrass, cardinal plants, and and some needle leaf Java Ferns. I plan on adding more in the near future but this is what I have so far. I've had this set up for about a month now and I am satisfied with how far the grown has come for the hairgrass and cardinal plants. I've been lighting this aquarium with some low-medium LED lights that I plan to upgrade in the future as well but I have seen some good progress so far. I have it running at 10 hours a day continuously until 9pm then the timer shuts it off. I guess my question is that I will be lowering the amount of light per day to 8 hours now since my plants have been established now and was wondering if it was ok to have my lighting in two 4 hour intervals instead of 8 hours of continuous light. There is no particular rhyme or reason for me to do this other than I like to have light on my tank when I am home and there is a time when I'm not home in the middle of the day. I was thinking to have it lit from 9am - 1pm then lit again at 4pm - 8 or 9 pm. Is it better to have it running continuously for 8 hours or does it only need to have a certain amount of light per day regardless if it was in intervals or not? Thank you in advance!

W

 

[ZxC]

Perfectly fine to run them for 4 hours x 2 photoperiods per day.

One claim is that CO2 is quickly depleted in a low tech tank, so having the lights shut off after the first short photoperiod lets CO2 build back up and supply the plants for the next short photoperiod.

Another claim is algae had a tougher time dealing with the split photoperiod.

 

[WeepingCrown]

Perfectly fine to run them for 4 hours x 2 photoperiods per day.

One claim is that CO2 is quickly depleted in a low tech tank, so having the lights shut off after the first short photoperiod lets CO2 build back up and supply the plants for the next short photoperiod.

Another claim is algae had a tougher time dealing with the split photoperiod.

So I don't have a CO2 system that will accumulate CO2 in the water, is that fine? I use Flourish excel every day before I head to work, 0.5 ml for the 6.5 gallon, its a tad bit less then the recommended dose which is 1 ml per 10 gallon or 0.5 ml per 5 gallon. It's just easier to measure 0.5 then to measure out whatever is needed for a 6.5 gallon.