hood light question

[cougargirl50]

Hi, just have a quick question. My 10 gallon aquarium is down in my finished basement. I keep the light on all day long. The basement is very dark when there are no lights on down there cause there are no windows in my basement. So I keep the aquarium light on all day. There is only a 15 watt hallogen bulb in it. Will it hurt at all to keep that light on 24/7 or does the fish prefer some darkness every now and then. *SLEEPING*

thanks for your help

 

[sparkydave]

Hi there, the fish do like some darkness as they would experience naturally. Leaving the light on all the time will create some large algae growth too, so get yourself a lamp timer and run the light off that. About 12-14 hours a day is what I usually find recommended, but if you get lots of algae you may have to cut back the number of hours you keep it on.

-Dave

 

[Orion]

Fish need a day/night cycle just as humans do. Keeping the lights on all the time can cause undue stress for them.

One of the best investments you can ever make for you aquariums is a timer. You can pick these up as cheap as $5 at Wal-mart. Some say that by having a consistant time the lights are on and off helps keep the fish healther. I've not seen any studies to back that up, but I can say its nice to have one less thing to worry about. (and great for us lazy people too )

 

[NoDeltaH2O]

got to 2nd the wise words of Orion. The timers I bought were the best investment per dollar I spent on my tanks. it makes fish keeping infinitely more stressfree. There are days I don't hardly feed the fish, but everything keeps growing. Even without live plants a timer is useful as fish prefer nature where there is a light/dark cycle. Just make sure when you buy one that you get one with 2 or 3 prongs depending on your hood. I accidentally bought a 2-prong timer and had to return it because my hood plug had 3 prongs.