Fish: Re: [tropical fish club] Timing of lighting for planted tank?

I believe I just addressed this post in the other fish group, explaining that algae IS a plant, and whoever told you about the light on/off cycle was giving you false/inaccurate info that could cause your live plants to suffer and will not stop algae growth if the conditions are allowable for it. The best way to control algae growth is to keep the water clean and in check, not to overstock the tank with fish, and not to run the lighting for more than a 10 - 12 hr cycle in a given day. If your tank will receive direct natural sunlight then you will want to lessen the hours of artificial light, but breaking up the light cycle will not prevent an algae problem... you can't "trick" it.

Dawn

Dawn Moneyhan
Aquatics Specialist/Nutritionist
To learn more about me go to
http://www.helium.com/users/449334

--- On Fri, 4/29/11, mothermastiff <mother@mothermastiff.com> wrote:

From: mothermastiff <mother@mothermastiff.com>
Subject: [tropical fish club] Timing of lighting for planted tank?
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, April 29, 2011, 6:28 AM

I am hoping to set up a small (20 long) planted tank soon, and got

CFLs on eBay, real powerful ones, but am still working on one problem.

Someone advised me to set the timer for the lights to have the lights

on 3 or 4 hours and off one, and do two or three cycles like this,

rather than leaving them on for the day. I was told this light

cycling would not harm the plants, but would discourage algae growth.

A way of fooling the algae. He said it cycled differently than more complex plants. (Does anyone else know about this?)

So, does anyone know where to find a timer that will accept as many as

3 on & off cycles, or do you know a way to rig an ordinary cheap timer

to go on & off multiple times in 24 hours??

thanks!

laurie (Mother Mastiff)

Silk Hope Fiber Farm

Critically Endangered Gulf Coast Native Sheep

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to build

a cistern.

I am always doing what I cannot do, in order to learn how to do it. -

Pablo Picasso

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]