Options for less light

[Simmo]

So living in the far North the days are increasing and by summer there’ll be 17 odd hours of daylight and the location of my tank means it’s probably going to get more algae, the signs are there already with a bit of green stuff appearing for the first time. It’s in the best position practical so cant move the tank. It has Juwel LED Multilux non adjustable lighting on a timer 3-9pm. Water changes are 25% twice a week and hard to increase as I’m often away and rely on family to do it. Thought of a few things

1. Cover the front glass during the day (until lights on at 3pm) with blackout material as in the pic. There is a little light at the sides so the occupants can probably see. Not sure if this is humane to the tetras and shrimp...?

2. Remove one of the two Juwel LED tubes, halving the artificial light. Could also reduce duration from 6 to 5 hours, but expect this is ineffective as daylight much stronger

3. Keeping the curtains closed all day is not going to be an option but closing them in the evening is probably OK reducing daylight to say 12 hours

4. Stop fretting and just clean algae off you big wuss 😂

Open to ideas
Thanks
Dave

 

[Kalum]

guessing it is a non-co2 tank? what is your current fert regime?

some of the things you list will work but ruin the experience and whole point of having a tank IMO, i've done the whole covering one side of the tank with cardboard during the day (tank being near a south facing window) but in the end it was too much of a faff and ruins having this nice tank we've spent a lot of money to look as nice as possible

I changed my lighting period to be slightly earlier so it runs more in parallel with daylight hours and then very low light from 7pm-9pm and that works for me (i used to have it running till 10:30pm), i know you don't have that luxury since it's not adjustable but I would firstly try and combat any algae with getting your ferts on point, then if the light is still too much (if there isn't c02 being added) then i would try and remove a tube

if you still can't get it then it's probably down to shading it (even a piece of cardboard on the left side only with hooks or a magnet) or to introduce co2

 

[Wookii]

Does the tank receive direct sunlight, or just general 'daylight' as in the photo? If the latter, I wouldn't be inclined to worry about it too much. If it does receive direct sunlight, you could make a removable screen from some card or black perspex that can hang on the tank edge.

If its a low tech tank though, a 12 hour lighting period with lower level lighting or lots of floating plants should be fine - so just run your lights from 9am - 9pm - in which case Option 4 is looking favourable

 

[Simmo]

Hi Guys
Yeah it’s low tech and no plans for CO2.
it does get direct sunlight in the afternoon/evening that looks fab tbh, not sure for how long..but mostly incidental light as per photo. The room isn’t really used in the day, its where we slump from 4pm ish til bed..
Dose 5ml of TNC complete daily, 200 l tank
I’ll maybe make a screen for sunny days but also kinda adopt an Option 4 approach 😂
Cheers
Dave

 

[Simmo]

Here you go live footage!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
That looks great. I like it when the tank gets a bit of sunlight on it in the morning or evening. The rays are pretty low by then, so I don't <"see it as an issue">.

cheers Darrel

 

[Simmo]

Hi all,
That looks great. I like it when the tank gets a bit of sunlight on it in the morning or evening. The rays are pretty low by then, so I don't <"see it as an issue">.

cheers Darrel

Hi Darrel
Yeah the sunlight looks fabulous, seems I’m fretting over nothing much....
Cheers
Dave

 

[sparkyweasel]

4. Stop fretting and just clean algae off you big wuss 😂

I would go for 4a. Stop fretting until you see what happens (if anything).
Then clean it if it's not too bad, think about shading if there's too much for the amount of cleaning you are happy with.

 

[Simmo]

Yeah so as I said there is a bit of green algae (where the sun hits the tank) and I figured prevention is better than cure but on balance will scrub it off and only take further action if it gets worse

 

[not called Bob]

id just enjoy the nice appearance the sun is giving you, my tank used to get the evening light in the back of the house, now it gets the morning sun at the front,

 

[The grumpy one]

Just an idea from my previous occupation.
What about attaching the below on the side of the tank?
Or even all the window glass?

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I can think of quite a few uses for Lee's whole range.

 

[mort]

My tank is low tech, very similarly planted to yours and gets direct sunlight from about 2pm till sunset everyday (although only really strongly in the summer). I don't suffer from any algae apart from a tiny bit of bga in substrate (or at least before I redid the substrate recently). So I think you are over thinking it and I wouldn't want a tank now that didn't have some sun because it really gets the fish excited and it excites me seeing them tbh. There is nothing better than watching fish chase down live food in a sunlit tank.
I don't think you can remove one of the tubes on the juwel and only run one, at least you couldn't in the past. They do make a controller for the leds but it's very expensive for what it is.

Another option, considering you are going for a natural approach is to just tint the water a little more in summer. The tannins would cut you lighting and are easily removed.

 

[Simmo]

My tank is low tech, very similarly planted to yours and gets direct sunlight from about 2pm till sunset everyday (although only really strongly in the summer). I don't suffer from any algae apart from a tiny bit of bga in substrate (or at least before I redid the substrate recently). So I think you are over thinking it and I wouldn't want a tank now that didn't have some sun because it really gets the fish excited and it excites me seeing them tbh. There is nothing better than watching fish chase down live food in a sunlit tank.
I don't think you can remove one of the tubes on the juwel and only run one, at least you couldn't in the past. They do make a controller for the leds but it's very expensive for what it is.

Another option, considering you are going for a natural approach is to just tint the water a little more in summer. The tannins would cut you lighting and are easily removed.

Thanks for sharing your experience, its encouraging I’ve had issues with green algae on glass in the past that I’d put down to direct light from outside but tbh I’ve re-learned a lot about aquariums recently dirty water and tank were probably a big factor.
Haven’t tried removing a tube, interesting point, the Multilux has no control option only Helialux iirc, I priced it up to 350 to change which is bonkers!
tinting sounds a good middle ground if tge wood starts going green again 👍