darcy Posted March 30, 2014 Report Share Posted March 30, 2014 Hi guys, years back I put a 15cm blue CCFL or neon tube under the tank hood and use to turn that on for 2-3 hours either side of the main 2x 36" tubes turning on off. This is on a tropical freshwater... Now that the tank is up and going again I'm questioning whether this is still a wise idea... The idea was that this way we could see the tank inhabitants (just), enough to still make it a little bit interesting in the evenings and dark mornings. The tank is pitch black for about 10 hours a day, with the main tubes on for about 10 hours as well. The little blue neon/ccfl (long forgotten what it was), was turned on for about three hours in the morning, and about an hour in the evening. The tank itself gets zero direct sunlight, and very little ambient light. Have people experimented with these minimal light sources much? Do they cause algae problems? Does the long period of light stress out the fish? My general thinking was that the fish would be happy enough as their natural habitat is for the most part on the equator anyway... So my bigger concern comes back to algae growth... Is there a particular light spectrum that can be used that is of minimal use to algae, but provides enough light for us to see by? Thanks D. The tank was still a bit cloudy after moving a few plants... Water logging the driftwood is a work in progress - At which point everything will get moved around again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted March 30, 2014 Report Share Posted March 30, 2014 Let's see...Your CCFL would be producing somewhere in the region of 20 lumens. Your main lighting in the region of 4200 lumens when the tubes are brand new. So, if you want to compensate for the extra light added by having that CCFL on for 6 hours per day you can turn your main lighting off 51.1 seconds earlier. This does not take into account that your main lighting probably loses more than 20 lumens per day. Or lighting frequencies. I think it's safe to say the increase in algae from having an extremely weak light in the tank for a few hours is going to be less than negligable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darcy Posted March 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2014 I think it's safe to say the increase in algae from having an extremely weak light in the tank for a few hours is going to be less than negligable. Thanks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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