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Why Do People Do an On/off/On

2K views 8 replies 7 participants last post by  dzega 
#1 ·
What's the point of people cycling there lights on and off
 
#3 ·
My main reason I used to do this is to have more viewable hours of my tank. Especially in college, without a split photoperiod and a super inconsistent schedule, I found myself only getting a very short time to view my tank, if at all.

Some do it because they say it gives time for the CO2 to ramp up. However, you can achieve the same by putting your CO2 on a separate timer from the lights.

I did some experimenting with this as well on low tech. On one tank, I was running way to much light and ran two very short photo periods, 3 hours each. I found I got some really deep colors without a lot of algae. The other was trying to get more growth in low light. I ran two longer photo periods 2x a day, 6 or 7 hours a piece. Growth did not double, like I was trying, but it did increase while not getting more algae. However, neither were done long term. I may try this again in the future however.
 
#7 ·
I light my tank with LED's. My primary reason for a split photo period is purely selfish... I have the lights come on in the morning shortly after I get up so I can enjoy the tank while getting ready (and be able to look for any issues that occurred over night). I think my morning light period right now is 4hrs (6am to 10am or something). I have the light come on again shortly after the normal time I get home from work and it stays on until 10pm, so about 4.5hrs PM cycle.

I am no expert, maybe someone will think I'm doing it wrong but until I see adverse affects I'm going to keep doing it this way. After all the whole point is to be able to SEE and enjoy the tank right?
 
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