Reduced the lighting and fish became more active, anyone else?

[we4wieners]

I went from 3 48" T5's to a 24" Marineland LED fixture. The fish are all over the tank as opposed to strictly hanging on the bottom. A majority of my fish are Geo's. Is this just my imagination or has anyone else noticed this? I am sure I am not imagining things though. Is there a coorelation between their activity and lighting.

 

[AQUAMONSTER]

Mine do the same. I have a single 36 inch led but also a T8 with a 10k light for showing more color. The single led running alone makes the fish more active for some reason then having both on

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[F1 VET]

A lot of fish are more active and comfortable when the lites turn off.



Go S. Vettel #1 rb8

 

[Slippery K]

My knifefish was like that also. My morays prefere no lights, but still come out when the lights are on, usualy if there's food involved. My armatus so far seems to prefere my moonlight vs the tank lights. Iv always used lower strength lights for this reason.

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[DIDYSIS]

I think it's more what they are use to. When I kept only a couple lights on then turned more on they hid more. With all the lights on all the time they were far more active all the time.

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[Naos1984]

My knife fish and my datnoid hate it but my cichlids love the brighter lights. I am thinking of putting my lights into separate timers. Currently all my lights are joined in a single timer.

 

[strollo22]

Most freshwater fish seem to do better in dimly lit environments. Most rivers and lake don't allow much light to pass through.


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[ShadowBass]

All of my native fish I keep in fairly low lighting and they act more natural IMO. Even if you snorkel/dive in clear creeks the light is usually diffused through trees and stuff, and you'll notice many fish tend to hang out in shadier areas.

A lot of our exotics come from muddy rivers like the amazon, or at the least tend to reside in deeper waters than you'd have in your tank, so light is either very dim or greatly diffused by water depth. So no wander they naturally take to dimmer lighting.
Also with nocturnal fish, I think their eyes are meant for dimmer lights (gars for instance hunt by sight, mostly at night - very neat to see them do it in the wild), so the bright light may be uncomfortable.

 

[Chicxulub]

When I went from four 36" t5's on my tank to three LED strips, I saw a tremedous increase in activity. Not to mention the LEDs have a much nicer looking effect in the tank.