Hello, I was just wondering how long aquarium lights should be left on for. I appreciate fish need the dark to sleep properly so what should be the right/natural lenght of time?
PS It's for a freshwater aquarium.

I have my lights on for a max of 6 hours a day.However most people have them on for around 8 hours a day.

I'm bad, I have it for 10 hours... But at least I got a timer!! I kept catching my mum turning it on right after I turned it off, so I'm surprised my fish got any sleep at all before!

So is 10 hours bad? Does it matter when you have the light on ie what time of day. I know you're meant to keep it regular though, like Nenn said with a timer

Well, I don't know if it's really that bad. I was actually tempted to have it on longer since I'm seeing a little bit of brown algae growing in the shadowy corners, but I think my goldfish are okay with the 10 hours of lid light.

I'd say its best to turn the light on at 12:00 noon and turn it of at 9:00 p.m.

I usually turn their light on for breakfast for 1-2 hours, then i turn it off for a couple hours just to let them rest. I then I turn it on again and leave it on til bedtime. I also have my living room light on all day so at least there is still a bit of light directed at their tank.
So about 6-7 hours a day their light is on.


karla

I usually have mine 6 to 8 hrs a day.

I'm quite new at this, so take it as you will, but mine seem to like it best if I leave it on while I'm feeding them so that they can see their food really well, and then leave it off almost the rest of the time. However they never ever get pitch black, because I never get pitch black. I turn the overhead light out in the room off at about 1am, most nights, but there's a night light on after that, but they don't have direct light over their tank for longer than a few hours every day. If I do much more than that, they seem to be kind of stressed, but like I said, I'm quite new to this, and there are most likely other things stressing them, as the tank is still cycling and they are still getting used to their environment.

Forum newbie, goldfish newbie, take that opinion as you will.