Light.

Hey, i never really use my light for my aquarium and i was wondering why do you really need to use a light on your fish tank?? why? cause my fishtank gets constant natural light, whats with this?

 

If I dont have the light on mine it looks bad, really bad and you cant see much. But if it gets a lot of light from a window you dont need a light.

 

Yeah, mine have normal light from outside, and at night dark, i dont even have a algae prob.

 

Thats good, I was talking to the guy at a tropical fish store about having my light on because of my pH and nitrate levels, he said I should leave it on for a few weeks to help the good bacteria.

 

Yeah thats when i start the fishtank i have the light on alot. then i slowly stop.

 

Hi Ryan & OneWolvesDream, Somebody PLEASE correct me if I am mistaken but what I learned from biology 101 is that the three factors determineing bacterial growth were moisture, warmth and absence of light. That bacteria can grow in light but would grow much more rapidly in the absence of light especially the UV spectrum. That is why the development of UV sterilizers to kill bacteria. Also the only way that I can see light affecting the PH and nitrate level is only in an indirect manner if it is promoting algae growth. In that case it is actually the algae that is affecting the PH and nitrate and not the light directly.
As to the question of "why do you need a light?", rather than trying to get into natural light and the physiology regarding vitamin C and so on blah, blah, blah to which will apply to synthetic lighting to an extremely limited degree; The main reason is "it makes the fishes colors look brighter".

 

My fishes colors go dimmer in unnatural light. :?

 

Ooops, sorry Lauren, I forgot you have that Florida sunshine. Here we have that Texas sunshine that bleaches out their colors. Here the only time I have seen aquarium lighting bleach out colors is if they were using incandescent lighting or a flourescent tube that was not designed for aquarium use. Aquarium flourescent tubes are designed to cut down on the white light spectrum and increase the reds and blues spectrums to enhance colors.

 

lol, its ok, but yeah my fish are very colorful and happy without it, i have partial direct sunlight, to a safe point, i also have like 3 algae eaters so nuthin is a prob in the tank.