Photoperiod vs Evening 'Viewing'

[Guest]

Ultimately it's about what works for you and your available viewing time, a siesta period can work well for some folk, for instance. If a tank is well established and balanced you have a lot more wriggle room, especially with dense planting and floaters or plants with floating leaves.

Low-energy tanks in particular give you more freedom to experiment. I've had low-energy tanks where the photoperiod has been a bit random and up to 12 hours a day without problems.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I have been experimenting with this during lockdown. I found that using floating plants allows me to have a much longer photo period. I would probably go further and say it requires a longer photo period.

I've run a ~thirteen hour day during lock-down without any problems, but I have more plants than normal.

........It also seems to lead to less stressed fish, more control (duckweed index), more diverse mico-fauna and increased breeding behaviour. I also noticed that more fry survive and the water quality seems to have improved. The colours on my fish also seemed to have intensified......

Definitely the same for me, floating plants really are the gift that keeps giving, we just need to convince everybody...... And they also <"deter werewolves">.

cheers Darrel

 

[Sergey]

I've always been interested with this approach and there are mixed opinions. Never tried it myself but it does make sense in terms of being able to view the tank without inputting too much light.

I picked this idea from Diana Walstad's book. Her reason for siesta (in low-tech) is that during the photoperiod CO2 gets all used up by plants, and having a siesta for 4 hours helps replenish the supply. I started using siesta from get-go and was quite pleased that I could enjoy my tanks both in the mornings and in the evenings, and I didn't see any bad effects on the plants. One thing I noticed that during siesta time they would lean towards a next window, but once the lights go up, they go straight again.

I later started to inject CO2 (24/7), but keep siesta regimen for viewing purposes.