do you have to shut them off at night?
is it harmful.
Answers:
Get common appliance timers at Wal-Mart or any other hardware store. Set it for when you wake up and when you go to bed and you will be fine.
a tropical day has about 12 hours of light. no need for more. so yes, you do have to shut the lights off in the evening already.
you can split those 12 hours in two sections though, for example switch on the light for 6:30-12:30 and for 17:00-23:00.
the fish and the plants don't care as long as there are 12 hours light but algae won't grow that fast with this plan.
you can use a timer to switch the lights off and on automatically at the proper time.
The best thing to do is keeping the light on for 10-12 hours during the day and keeping it off for 12-14 hours at nights
A timer is extremly helpful with that
Hope that helps
Good luck
EB
Timers are great. But unless you have plants in your tank I wouldn't bother. The only time you really need to even have the tank light ON is when you want to view it better. The fish get plenty of ambient light from the room itself so unless you have the tank in a pitch dark room, the fish already have a "day" cycle. The purpose of the aquarium lights is to supply light for the plants and for your viewing pleasure. If you don't have plants in the tank, then you rarely need those lights on.
When you do turn the lights on though, make sure the room light is on first. The more light coming into the tank before you turn the tank light on the less you will startle the fish. Startling fish is a major timer drawback but if you have plants it's usually worth the tradeoff (fish eventually get used to the fact that the light will be coming on suddenly everyday).
I shut them off after 12 hours. At night, I have something that simulates moonlight...
http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/group/10...
Your light should be for 12 hours a day, so yes it should be turned off at night. Wal - Mart has some timers for cheaper than other stores.
~ZTM
