# Lighting , Cloud effect



## dino21 (19 Apr 2020)

You often see mention of dimming  the led lighting to simulate a midday storm and cloudier parts of the day as experienced in the tropics.

While it may enhance things from the users perspective is there any real benefit to the plants or fish ?


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## Witcher (19 Apr 2020)

dino21 said:


> While it may enhance things from the users perspective is there any real benefit to the plants or fish ?



In the tropics it's usually accompanied with heavy rain and quick change of water/air parameters (acidity, softness, air pressure etc.) which leads to spawning. Without this I think it may only lead to unnecessary stress for the animals.


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## Ghettofarmulous (19 Apr 2020)

The flex has a lightning mode. It’s ridiculous.


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## zozo (20 Apr 2020)

dino21 said:


> is there any real benefit to the plants or fish ?



Benefit for the plants i would say as far as we know it would be far fetched to claim it is. But what do we know? There are studies done that revealed that plants react and act too much more stimulus and seem to have higher intelligence than previously believed and known. 

But we yet we didn't get to the bottom of it. 

Benefit for the fish? IMHO and experience absolutely a big YES!! I played for a number of years with such light effects simulating cloudy skies. And schooling fish depending on the region they like to swim react to it rather positively. For example, under higher light, they rather are more cautious and stay in the mid-range or even closer to the substrate. In lower light levels they feel much safer to come closer to the surface. Hence floating plants are equally welcomed by the fish for the same reason, it dims the light and it provides shelter and a feeling of safety.

I went so far to not only create a dynamic light schedule, that's the beauty of DC voltage and PWM control.  I also created a dynamic flow pattern with a DC 12 volt water pump to control its speed in a schedule via PWM. And also this i observed as very positively received by the fish and it changes their behaviour according to the flow change. Avoid it or come to play in it... 

Nature is a very dynamic environment were a lot of sudden changes take place fishes to have to endure. Since the fish has a big part of the stream to explore. Then it's not hard to imagine that partially recreating such a dynamic environment can only be received as a welcome. Not saying a fish is bored to death in a rather small static artificial environment... But I'm pretty convinced fish know what fun is and will have it if given to them.


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## dino21 (20 Apr 2020)

zozo said:


> Benefit for the plants i would say as far as we know it would be far fetched to claim it is. But what do we know? There are studies done that revealed that plants react and act too much more stimulus and seem to have higher intelligence than previously believed and known.
> 
> But we yet we didn't get to the bottom of it.
> 
> ...



Thankyou,  interesting,  worth giving it a try and seeing how they react,  may also try a dc pump as you mention.


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## Tim Harrison (20 Apr 2020)

I've a Ecotech Radion XR15 FW and it has a storm function which can be used to simulate the rainy season with clouds and lightening. Combined with a water change and sometimes low frequency noise and a spray bar to imitate rain, it's supposedly a technique some breeders use to get some hard to breed tropical fish to spawn. But in nature you'd get a barometric pressure change etc as well, which I'm sure at least some fish can detect e,g, Weather Loach. So I'm not sure how successful it is.

Anyway, I never used it, but it somehow managed to program itself in to the photoperiod and I just found it annoying. Incidentally my fish looked like they couldn't have given a monkey's


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## zozo (20 Apr 2020)

In one aquarium i made a light setup with 5 standalone LED spotlights and placed them in an arch over the tank. Hooked to a 5 channel LED controller. With the far-right and left with the lowest intensity 5-watt LED positioned low to beam diagonally into the tank, the 3 middle lights the strongest 9-watt x 12-watt x 9-watt LED. The middle 12-watt is positioned highest and beams vertically down. I set the schedule as sunrise to switch on the far right spot first then the 2d spot follows 30 minutes later and so on till number 5.

Then approaching the evening, it switches off far-right and the 2nd 30 minutes later and so on till spot number 5 at the far left burns the longest till far into the evening if i want to and stay up late even as an ambient moonlight.

The dynamic light play and shadow casting in the tank is awesome and rather naturally looking. This gradually increases and lowers intensity, from different angles even without using a dimmer. Its simply the single LED spotlight intensity doing the job
This gradually increases and lowers intensity starting from the right to the left same as the sun would do from the east to the west.

Regarding fish, the tank is virtually empty at the time so i can't show it.. But at one time the tank housed a 30 Boraras and a small school of Oreychtis Barbs. And they absolutely reacted to the light play... In the morning closer to the surface at the tanks right side, deeper down in the mid free swimming space at noon and closer to the surface at the left side in the evening. Following the light.

Hence fish have eyes...  Guess what they do with that?... 

Even fish with seemingly no eyes in a way still see and do a better job at it than we do. See the stunning @foxfish video.



Another one. If you do a proper search you might find the thread back, title containing something like "Ember Tetras constantly hiding in the back corner of the tank?" the advice given was (By me FYI ): Change the flow, direction or speed!? And he did and confirmed, they came out and were all over the place.


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