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Fluval Edge - How long lights on per day?

Glenda Steel

Glenda Steel

Member
Joined
2 Jul 2014
Messages
154
Location
Lincolnshire England
We are setting up a Fluval Edge 46 litre tank (Aquarium dimensions (L x W x H): 43 X 26 X 59.4 CM (16.9 X 10.2 X 23.4 IN)) with only the supplied lighting (42 HIGH OUTPUT LEDS, 7600 K) the planting with be modest (it's our first tank!) with hopefully the following:
Vallisneria Nana
Limnophila Sessiliflora
Cryptocoryne wendtii brown

How long should we leave the lights on per day/evening? The room is light, with windows to 3 aspects, including patio doors that span nearly the whole of the back wall. The tank is not in direct sunlight.

Also do we need to leave the curtains open during the night for the fish & shrimp?!!
Many thanks!
Glenda
 
Last edited:
Also do we need to leave the curtains open during the night for the fish & shrimp?!!
Many thanks!
only if they like the view.🙂 sorry I have a silly sense of humour. try to keep as much natural daylight off your tank as poss. You only need a beam of sun on the substrate to start algae off at certain times of the year. As for lights I start at 5 on our new set ups and work up( high tech co2 and ferts) Are you using ferts
 
Glenda Steel said:
We are setting up a Fluval Edge 46 litre tank (Aquarium dimensions (L x W x H): 43 X 26 X 59.4 CM (16.9 X 10.2 X 23.4 IN)) with only the supplied lighting (42 HIGH OUTPUT LEDS, 7600 K) the planting with be modest (it's our first tank!) with hopefully the following:
Vallisneria Nana
Limnophila Sessiliflora
Cryptocoryne wendtii brown

How long should we leave the lights on per day/evening? The room is light, with windows to 3 aspects, including patio doors that span nearly the whole of the back wall. The tank is not in direct sunlight.

Also do we need to leave the curtains open during the night for the fish & shrimp?!!
Many thanks!
Glenda
Click to expand...

Hi Glenda

If low energy ie no co2 or liquid carbon etc and just occasional ferts you can run the lights for around 6 hours a day increasing every few weeks

Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk 2
 
kirk said:
try to keep as much natural daylight off your tank as poss. You only need a beam of sun on the substrate to start algae off at certain times of the year.
Click to expand...
This is not really true.
If a tank gets algae because of open curtains, then it indicates that something else was wrong, such as poor CO2 or poor nutrition, or even poor maintenance.

Cheers,
 
Sun is not a contributor then. Surely keeping sun off the tank will help reduce algae?I did say day light but I meant sun my opologise. Our tank when sun gets on it I have an algae problem, for example my better half left the blinds open a bit more during the day a few days running, now I have algae again!! I do have problems with balancing co2 too.. Also during the winter in the shade our patio algaes up. I'll refrain from giving advice from now on without being more discript and I'm not arguing with the experts Clive knows his stuff.🙂
 
Thank you so much for such wonderful tips and help! I am looking into fertiliser but want to find one shrimp friendly. No we don't have any added Co2 just a very low tech' set up. Thanks for the "view" tip Kirk (made me smile) - I think they just might enjoy it! The reason for asking about keeping the curtains open at night was due to reading on another forum how some fish of the nervous variety seem calmer at night when the room wasn't pitch black. Let's hope our fish are more Zen! To be honest I'd love to keep the lights on all day as they really look fabulous but I'm just thinking of power consumption and the planet.
 
kirk said:
Our tank when sun gets on it I have an algae problem, for example my better half left the blinds open a bit more during the day a few days running, now I have algae again!! I do have problems with balancing co2 too.
Click to expand...
Yes mate, regret to inform. Again, closing the shades is a workaround solution and it may be the only way to solve the problem if the other, more direct solutions are not practicable. When CO2 is weak there are then SO many things that trigger problems in the tank. Again, without a more detailed information of the system in question it's really difficult to troubleshoot. If you are having difficulties then definitely start a thread with the details. more info in these posts:
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/algae-on-front-and-back-of-tank.29436/#post-307574
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/would-this-led-light-be-suitable-for-my-tank.21381/#post-218680

Cheers,
 
Just taking the tanks lights into consideration and not the location I had a 23 litre one with the stock LED bar running low tech and my
Lights were in for about 8.5 hours a day with no issues.
 
MikeC1408 said:
Just taking the tanks lights into consideration and not the location I had a 23 litre one with the stock LED bar running low tech and my
Lights were in for about 8.5 hours a day with no issues.
Click to expand...
Thanks Mike, 8.5 hours a day, did this include the evening too? At the moment I am having the lights on in the morning from around 6am to 11am, and then again in the evening from 6.30pm until 11pm. The new planted Rotala rotundifolia has already put on new shoots in a week and the tips are turning a pretty pink and even the Cryptocoryne has put on new growth. Presumably the plants would not be doing as well if they were getting too much light?
 
Glenda Steel said:
Thanks Mike, 8.5 hours a day, did this include the evening too? At the moment I am having the lights on in the morning from around 6am to 11am, and then again in the evening from 6.30pm until 11pm. The new planted Rotala rotundifolia has already put on new shoots in a week and the tips are turning a pretty pink and even the Cryptocoryne has put on new growth. Presumably the plants would not be doing as well if they were getting too much light?
Click to expand...
They came on around 1 and stayed in till about 9 or 10.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hi all, I'm very new to aquariums I have many plants in my home and decided I wanted to have aquatic plants & fish in an aquarium. I live in Dubai and my 46L tank likely gets a sun beam for 2 hours per day through double glazed and UV coated glass. I leave the white LED lights on about 10 hours per day and the blue (night LED) lights over night. Is this okay or a disaster waiting to happen?
 
The sun it's at about 5:15pm if I'm home I move the curtain across. I'm buying a Wifi plug so I can reomotely switch the light on and off. I don't have CO2 but I'm using a liquid form I put the recommended amount in weekly. I have some images if you want to have a look. Thanks for the feedback
 
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