Clown knife and lighting question

[Tim804]

Hello everyone! I have a 44 gallon tank (pentagon) tank with 1 clown knife (approx. 4"), 2 opalene gouramis, and 2 kissing gouramins. I was reading about how clown knifes do not like alot of light. Can I either 1. get a dimmer bulb for the flourescent lighting, or 2. use some form of moonlighting using LED's? My clown knife will not be in this tank forever he will be moving to a 55 gallon when he gets bigger, then a 125 gallon over time. I would like to get info on ways to get to see my clown knife more often than night time only, since he stays in his cave most of the day. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Tim

 

[Orion]

I'm not sure how well dimmer switches will work on regular flouresent lights.

If you just have standard lighting over the tank, then I would say the easiest thing to do would be to get some floating plants like hornwart or riccia to help keep a lot of light from getting to the bottom.

 

[hyunelan2]

Standard dimmer switches are not recommended for fluorescent lighting. While it will work, putting the lessened voltage to the light will eventually burn out the ballast, or cause it to make that terrible 'humming' noise that fluorescent lights can make. There are dimmers made for fluorescent lights, but they are expensive.

I would say to just modify the environment so the fish can get out of the direct light. Maybe put in a 'shelf' of a large piece of slate - so it's a large shaded area, but you can still see in it from the front of the tank.