How many hours of light daily?

[eball2k]

How many hours a day do you have your tank lights on?
I used to keep reef tanks and light was a very important factor.
How important is lighting in a fish only freshwater tank?

 

[angelojg22]

not nearly as important as reef but if you have a planted tank then some where around 6-8 hours

 

[knifegill]

Yep, 6-8 for standard display purposes. For spawning, I go 8 to 10 hours.

 

[FuzzyHead]

I keep my lights on about 16 hours a day, but I just change my water and deal with algae often. When I get my moonlights I'll probably go for more like 12-14 hours a day. Of course, my lights are on a timer and so I like to see them on when I go off to work and still watch the fish when I get home from work.

 

[Angler]

Lighting is not important to a fish only freshwater tank. I keep mine on about 10 hours.

 

[Brian_Indiana]

For the Malawi and Tanganyika tanks, the lights are on about 14 hours a day. On my FH tank, the lights are on about 4 hours a day.

 

[eball2k]

Good to know. I've been running them about 12 hours but I'll prob drop it down to about 8 hours a day.

My lights are on a timer, so I guess I'll just do the morning feeding when the lights are off.

 

[ckid]

i keep the tank lights on for about 12 hrs a day, as i got a planted fresh water tank..

 

[wcgunns]

I had an algae problem and changed to three four hour time frames with lights with two hours of lights off between them. Works great for me and my oscars are always in spawn mode.

 

[aclockworkorange]

If you don't have plants, it's not really important. If you get algae, run them for a shorter amount of time.
If you do have plants, it varies. Gotta get the right balance.