AverageWhiteBloke
Member
At risk of being told to check other posts 
What is generally accepted a being the minimum time for lights to be on?
At the moment I'm having to down grade my set up for a while, the problem is two fold firstly my tank is very effective at getting rid of co2 with it being systemised with trickle filters that can't be sealed. I have discussed it in the board but to be honest I have came to the conclusion that best all round would be to get an external canister at some point, going to wait to have problems with the pump that's on there already and then change. Secondly keeping all the parameters is quite time consuming and I'm back working away from home for the foreseeable future .
So that I don't lose interest in my tank again I'm slowing everything down and going low tech-ish but with co2, I have reduced the lighting by a 20watt tube and bought a solenoid for the co2, so far I am fine tuning the co2 timing with lighting to get target at lights on time while home for the week. Currently I'm getting somewhere near but using quite a lot of co2, lights are on 5-12pm and co2 3-10pm. My tank is quite near some patio doors and gets light so I'm guessing I could come down on the lighting duration a fair bit.
I'm going up with the co2 at quarter of an hour intervals and coming down with the lighting timing the same amount to try and hit a sweet spot I could leave for a week without causing too many problems. How far down with the light timing should I go though?
I have been taking the lighting off the top end of the time, with winter coming it gets dark where my tank is situated so don't really want it coming on much later than five so the tank gets 2 dark periods in one day but if I reduce the lighting in the evening too much when I am working locally I won't get to see the tank much lit up when I get in, dilemma
While I'm on the subject of viewing time, I was thinking of replacing the 20 watt I leave off with a blue moon so I can leave it on a little bit longer if I'm back without increasing demand on co2 too much. Problem is Aqua-one's have an odd sized tube in 23.5" and I can't find a blue moon at that size. Will a marine tube be pretty similar?
http://www.aquarium-parts.co.uk/acatalo ... Tubes.html
What is generally accepted a being the minimum time for lights to be on?At the moment I'm having to down grade my set up for a while, the problem is two fold firstly my tank is very effective at getting rid of co2 with it being systemised with trickle filters that can't be sealed. I have discussed it in the board but to be honest I have came to the conclusion that best all round would be to get an external canister at some point, going to wait to have problems with the pump that's on there already and then change. Secondly keeping all the parameters is quite time consuming and I'm back working away from home for the foreseeable future
.So that I don't lose interest in my tank again I'm slowing everything down and going low tech-ish but with co2, I have reduced the lighting by a 20watt tube and bought a solenoid for the co2, so far I am fine tuning the co2 timing with lighting to get target at lights on time while home for the week. Currently I'm getting somewhere near but using quite a lot of co2, lights are on 5-12pm and co2 3-10pm. My tank is quite near some patio doors and gets light so I'm guessing I could come down on the lighting duration a fair bit.
I'm going up with the co2 at quarter of an hour intervals and coming down with the lighting timing the same amount to try and hit a sweet spot I could leave for a week without causing too many problems. How far down with the light timing should I go though?
I have been taking the lighting off the top end of the time, with winter coming it gets dark where my tank is situated so don't really want it coming on much later than five so the tank gets 2 dark periods in one day but if I reduce the lighting in the evening too much when I am working locally I won't get to see the tank much lit up when I get in, dilemma
While I'm on the subject of viewing time, I was thinking of replacing the 20 watt I leave off with a blue moon so I can leave it on a little bit longer if I'm back without increasing demand on co2 too much. Problem is Aqua-one's have an odd sized tube in 23.5" and I can't find a blue moon at that size. Will a marine tube be pretty similar?
http://www.aquarium-parts.co.uk/acatalo ... Tubes.html
