lights

[dismatt]

this might seem like a dumb question but whats the ideal amount of time to leave your aquarium lights on for. :lol: :lol:

[Darth_discus]

around about ten hours a day i live them on from 7 30 till8 30 roughly(anyone correct if i am wrong)

[duck]

around about ten hours a day i live them on from 7 30 till8 30 roughly(anyone correct if i am wrong)
That's 13 hour's.
Are you growing plants then around the 10 hour's ok if you are not then 10 would be fine too i guess :roll:

[DR.V]

yeah it depends on wether you got a planted tank or not. Use a timer to adjust the time, this way more convinient for you.

[kalebjarrod]

10hours is good

more than that and you will get some algee problems :wink:

[lesley]

Mine generally go on between 7-8 in the morning, off at anything up to 10 at night. I have common plecs and bristlenose plecos, clown loaches and flying fox in discus tank and NO algae to be seen!

Once your planted tank settles down and balances out, if you have the algae eaters (I also have a lot of driftwood) I find that most of your algae problems will go. I have another 4' with Uarus, geophagus and tetras, together with a lazy common pleco and a couple of newly introduced peppermint plecos that has been running for a couple of months and the algae is just coming under control. I didn't realise how much the Uarus would wipe out the plants and the tank has been struggling to stablise with all the plants disappearing! The only plants that are surviving in this tank are the vals which are fairly fast growing anyway and a small amount of duckweek.

In my experience if you have both slow growing and a couple of fast growing as well as your algae eaters you won't have to worry so much about having lights on for too long.

Have enclosed a couple of example pics, the first two are in the discus tank where I don't have any algae probs, the third the tank that is still stabilising, I am not doing anything to this tank other than normal cleaning, I know that the algae will stabilise eventually.

Lesley

[lesley]

and

[lesley]

eventually this tank will stabilise

[DR.V]

thats a big cat fish.
Pleco ??

[lesley]

Hello Dr V

Yes is a pleco - don't know what sort though.

Lesley

[DR.V]

looks cool though