A Lighting Question

[IDunnoWhy]

Hi all, I have yet another question, do I need to purchase some sort of "nite-lite" for my fish, or do I just simply turn off the light at night. It seems to me that in the "wild" there would be some sort of natural nite-lite a.k.a. the moon, do my Danios need this type of situation? I have no live plants, so no problem there.*twirlysmi

Thanks again for Politely answering yet another likely stupid question*twirlysmi

 

[Mahamotorworks]

You can just turn off the light.

MAHA

 

[Lotus]

I guarantee you, those danios have probably never seen a river or a lake. They'll be fine in the dark, and won't expect moonlight.

 

[geekrockgirl85]

yes.. darkness will be just ducky at night.

 

[IDunnoWhy]

OK, so the next question, It seems to me that I've read somewhere, that you use approx. 12hrs of light and 12hrs of dark, Is this the case with most breeds of fish? I do intend to add a couple more fish to this tank. But no live plants. Thanks again!!! More stupid questions to follow I'm sure.

 

[Fuzz16]

i recommend that your turn on a light around the tank in the house, then turn the light off in the tank. leave the light on in the house for about 5 minutes or so so they can get used to the dark. my mollies used to go into shock because i would just turn thier tank light off in a dark room.

and the only thing you really have to worry about with lots of light is algae, i beleive. fish dont neccesarily need light, its more for the owner.

 

[IDunnoWhy]

Thank you! I wouldn't have thought about turning on another light to let them adjust. I will start that tonight.

 

[homebunnyj]

I feel that you're overthinking the whole lighting issue.

The only time it's truly important is when you're getting set up to breed fish. Some fish's breeding behavior is triggered by certain patterns of lighting (duration, intensity, etc.). But that's a whole other ball of wax... something to attempt when you can keep the fish healthy and happy easily, and perhaps when fishkeeping has become a little boring... adds an extra challenge.

 

[MissFishy]

I basically just turn on my lights when I want to look at the fish or when I am in the same room. I do try not to shock them by turning on a room light first, then turning on their tank light. Danios should be fine without doing this, but other types of fish can get startled easily and run into the walls of their tanks injuring themselves.

 

[Toam]

I guess I could always throw an opinion in on this topic as well.
If you don't have live plants in your aquarium, the amount of light isn't even that important (*don't get me wrong though, some form of light is relatively important). I agree mostly with Fuzz in the fact that night light is more for the owners viewing pleasure, you can use a blue LED light for this, and they are cheap. I am quite sure you've seen many goldfish, and betta bowls without lights over them, and they do quite well. I did an experiment once in grade 6 where I kept two aquariums with guppies in them, one I had a 12 hour day cycle, and a 12 hour night cycle, the other tank had a blanket over it and was in a 24 hour true dark cycle. The purpose of this experiment was to see if light affected the breeding factor of the common guppie, the end result was that no, it did not. The guppies in true dark bred just as actively as the fish in the 12 hour cycle tank. The side note there, is as homebunny said, some fish do require certain light amounts to induce breeding, but you will find that information out in the profiles of the fish if you research them.