what should my light times be? extensive tank info included

[m8r8j]

alright im looking for some help for my tank, i need to know the right amount of time i should have my lights on for, for my tank.

my tank is a 14 biocube, i have 2 24 watt compact flourescent bulbs, 10,000k's... about 3.4 watts per gallon.

they are ran on two seperate timers, so i can have them both go on and off at the same time, or i can have one run for some time, and another for a different time. for example one on 12-10pm and the other from 2-8pm or something..... i just want the right amount of light for the amount of plants i have/ferts i use.

right now i have both lights on from 12pm-10pm, and my plants are doing great! but there is always room for improvement.

i dose all seachem produts: flourish, flourish excel, iron, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. and i don't use co2.

my substrate is seachem flourite.

right now my dosing schedule looks like this:
monday: flourish 1.2ml, excel 1.4ml, iron 1.4ml, nitrogen .9ml, phosphorus 1.7ml
tuesday: excel 1.4ml, iron 1.4ml
wednesday: excel 1.4ml, iron 1.4ml, potassium 2.3ml
thursday: excel 1.4ml, iron 1.4ml, nitrogen .9ml, phosphorus 1.7ml
friday: excel 1.4ml, iron 1.4ml, potassium 2.3ml
saturday: flourish 1.2ml, excel 1.4ml, iron 1.4ml
sunday: 30% wc, excel water change dose.

right now i have a big amazon sword for the center piece and im working on a carpet of dwarf sagittaria (i have 2 bunches of 10 in the mail right now) and 2 banana plants, one of them actually was pearling last night.

there are 10 serpae tetras, and 2 otos in there and almost all my pond snails are gone.

let me know what you guys think my light situation should be! thanks so much.

 

[Westie]

...and my plants are doing great!

Confucius say,"If it aint broke, don't fix it."

 

[Pyramid_Party]

I'd say no more than 10 hours. Start out with 8 hours for a week or 2, then increase to 10. If you see algae or other problems reduce hours back to 7,8,9 till you find the right balance.

And I agree with the guy above me. If everythings fine now don't mess with it.

 

[aclockworkorange]

Agreed, the algae will tell you when you are using too much light.

 

[jcardona1]

 

[Sab_Fan]

ditto . . . I have a 12G nano-cube, run the lights for about 9hrs/day . . .

 

[FLESHY]

Hmm pictures. And yes...if everything is going well you have answered your own question.

 

[spyke]

another solution is to keep your lights on for 4-5 hours at a time, then shut it off for 2, and have it run for another 4-5 after that...this helps with your algae control
if you have a problem with that

the algae is a less complex and..."stupid" organism...it takes it longer to turn on if you will, when it comes to photosynthesizing. But your plants are more complex and can start photosynthesizing quicker and can deal with the nap time...so that is one thing you can do with your lighting.
but everything sounds good to me.