# Daily light duration?



## dtcbud (Jun 7, 2010)

Conventional wisdom says 10-12 hrs per day, but I see many posts here of shorter duration. I'd like to see what posters here really do. I'm planning to start my tank in two weeks & will appreciate your input. Here are the specifics:

29g, ecocomplete substrate, Aquatic Life T5HO w/two bulbs (2.4 wpg per lfs), Eheim 2234. Planning to use Seachem Flourish & Excel.

Planned plants: Background-Rotala & moneywort. Midground-Java Fern, Anubias, Crypts. Foreground-E. Tenellus. 

Fish-gold white clouds, cardinal tetras, albino corys.

My goal is low maintenance, not max. growth. Thanks.


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## xmas_one (Feb 5, 2010)

With no co2 on that tank, and those t5ho's, you're asking for an algae farm. LFS's can be a terrible place to get information....


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## Kathyy (Feb 22, 2010)

Since I am still compensating for having no light and being unable to grow plants for decades I am quite seriously addicted to light and ran 160 watts T12 over a 40 gallon tank for years and then 3.5 watts of MH and now 3 watts MH over a 100 gallon tank. Just this year I have dropped my lighting period to 8 hours per fixture. I am not doing this because I was told it was best. I am watching the plants. Wisteria, Hygrophilia diffiformis and Bacopa, not sure which one, both fold their leaves up when they are done for the day. Good enough for me.

Suspect your fixture is going to put you into high light whether you like it or not. Bet you will have to either raise the fixture, shade it, use floating plants or turn off one bulb somehow to reduce it.


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

T5HO is really intense light, especially if you have good reflectors in the fixture. I don't think Excel is going to cut it with that much light. Can you raise the fixture a foot or so or remove/turn off one bulb? If you keep things as is you really will need CO2. 

I have one 50 gallon Excel tank that has 130 watts of PC light over it and have had good success using floating plants to cut the light intensity. It has been an easy tank to maintain, minimal algae and if algae does start to grow it grows slowly making it easier to control and get rid of.

Also, Seachem Flourish is used mainly for micro nutrients. With that much light you will need to dose macro nutrients too, Nitrogen, Phophates and Potassium.

I like to start up my tanks with a reduced lighting period, maybe 6 hours. Once the tank is cycled and plants are established I start to increase the photoperiod slowly, say an hour every 2 weeks, adjust ferts and CO2 and watch the tank. Longest photoperiod I use is 9 hours.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

My ripariums are low light, with the light hanging many inches from the waterline. I run them 12 hours a day, with no problem. But, when I had a regular aquarium, with high or medium light, 8 hours was the longest I would keep the light on.


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## cat4wisson (Feb 20, 2010)

I run dual 39watt t-5's on a 46 gallon tank for just over 8 hrs a day without any major algea issues(Usually from 1pm to 9pm). I did have to cut it down from my original 10 hr cycle that I started with.


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## dtcbud (Jun 7, 2010)

*Thanks for the responses*

The bulbs are 6K & roseate. Shouldn't that make a difference? Based on the advice above, I'll start at eight hours.


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