moon lights: how bad for plants?

[mellowvision]

I know that moonlights aren't beneficial to my plants, but I'm a night owl and wish I could run my lights all night long... moon lights are my only real option unless I want to grow algae instead.

Are they bad for the plants? if so, how bad? will they alter the photo period?

[FishyMatty]

dude I have moon lights on every tank for that very reason. I made sure when buying lights that they had moon lights built in and if they weren't good enough I added more. My 45g has a metal halide fixture that now has 8 blue LEDs, my 20g has 4LEDs and my 38g has 2 really bright LEDs.
I wouldn't live with out them.
They don't do anything good or bad. I try not to leave them on all night just to give my fish a rest but on occasion I fall asleep with them on.
Once you've had LEDs on your tank you will never have anything else.

[mellowvision]

oh, I already have one double led on my 20 gallon, and the fixture for the 10 gallon I am setting up has them. I'm sold... was just curious about how they affect plants and algae.

There is a small part of me that really wants to make a cave with leds inside it... but the other side of me likes it to look really natural.

[mellowvision]

part two of the question: how much ambient room light is considered "light"? both at night with lamps on, and during the day with windows? My current tank is in a dim room with north facing windows, that face into a typical brooklyn backyard... not very bright. but the other tank may end up in a south facing room, the room is very bright, and could potentially receive rays of sunlight around 3-6pm during summer months. The thing is, I'd really like to have my lights on from 5pm-2am rather than daytime...

[FishyMatty]

Ambient room light has little to no effect on plants or algae. The only way ambient light could effect algae or plants is if there was one directed at the tank but at the distance it would be the luminosity would be almost lost, so again no effect. Sun light on the other hand even if A ray from two rooms away hit your tank directly and was only 1 inch wide the effects could be devastating.
I have three tanks, 1 infront of a window, 2 offset in the same room and 3 through the doorway into the other room.
A few months back when I just set the one in the window up as a planted tank I went away for 5 days. when I came back everything was covered in algae. At that time the one offset in the same room was getting a ray of light for just a few hours in the morning before the co2 comes on, increased plant growth but algae on the glass where there was none before. And even the one in the other room was getting a ray of light for a short time and that too had almost a straight line of algae where the sun beam hit the tank for a short time early in the AM.

[mellowvision]

wow. that's not cool. I really would like the second tank in my living room, instead of 2 in my office. I almost never sit on the couch now that i have a tank in the office.... lol. but yeah, the sun travels around the room from about 2pm to 6pm, very strong rays... the cat follows them around the room all day... I am sure the tank would get a lot of sun if it were anywhere but right next to the window, since the light is blocked by the deep window frames... but even there is bright, just no rays.

[FishyMatty]

I still have the tank in front o
f the window just all three sides are covered with white board. Some sun actually comes in through the to since the light is hung about 12" off the top. But it never touches the plants just the water and the front glass and because of that I get algae only on the glass.

[geofied]

Meh, some folks swear by window tanks. Of the 5 tanks I have inside, 4 of them get exposure to window light, 2 of them direct sunshine for parts of the day. Yes I get algae blooms, but I get some algae in all my tanks(except notably from the newer one setup just below a South facing window that gets slices of direct rays 5-6 hours/day),but they're all manageable. And I'd wager most of the folks here do too, windows or not. I've taken some of the measures suggested by Walstad (who swears by putting her tanks in front of South facing windows) and they have helped tremendously. I've filtered the light using a cloth backdrop/background and I've made sure my substrate is not getting the sunlight.

FishyMatty, it is possible that your newer tank that got hit by an NH4 rise (cycling) and that fueled the outbreak. Just speculating of course.

Anyway, window lit tanks aren't to be avoided like the plague, in fact my emergent plants absolutely love the real sunshine and show it with their colors (and stems bent towards).

[mellowvision]

with those tanks in the windows, are you using any artificial light? I am very interested in setting up a Walsted tank...

[geofied]

I still have the tank in front o
f the window just all three sides are covered with white board. Some sun actually comes in through the to since the light is hung about 12" off the top. But it never touches the plants just the water and the front glass and because of that I get algae only on the glass.

Wait a minute, is this the same tank from your hair algae thread, the one with 5wpg?

[mellowvision]

LOL "I never had it before!"

[FishyMatty]

nope the window one is not the hair algae one. In fact other than some spot algae it is algae free.
The Algae from my 5 days away could be that the co2 tubing got chewed through by one of my kittens and went empty, could have been the first day or the last but still. And at that time of the year it was getting 6hr of sun

[geofied]

with those tanks in the windows, are you using any artificial light? I am very interested in setting up a Walsted tank...

Oh, absolutely. The one I mentioned that gets the 5-6 hours direct sunlight has a 40w 2ft shoplight hanging 3 inches above it. Now the tank is only 10g (so it loses a bit on the sides) and also has a fair amount of Salvinia/Duckweed/Riccia filtering the light.

The one that is adjacent to an East window and gets morning direct is a 10g with 30wpg.

The one that sits in a North facing window is a 10g with 26wpg.

You won't be too popular around here with a Walstad tank. Folks here tend to think that's outlander stuff. I'll still be your friend though :-).

Augh, you guys are not helping my plantsomnia...need sleep, must work tomorrow...

[mellowvision]

it was probably the co2. my tank was doing good with very little beard algae, and then one night the co2 started acting up, I had 3 days of trying different setups that all leaked, and finally got it resolved on day 4, but by then the algae had exploded. a week later, it's really under control and the plants acutally started giving off oxygen... a first for me


outlander? haha. walstad just doesn't sell products, and people like to consume!

You'd think walstad would be the ultimate, the big acheivement for the freshwater enthusiast. planting a bunch of hairgrass in ecocomplete, and photographing it on a glowing white background with a subtle gradient top to bottom might look nice, but a walstad tank IS nature, just confined.

[geofied]

nope the window one is not the hair algae one. In fact other than some spot algae it is algae free.
The Algae from my 5 days away could be that the co2 tubing got chewed through by one of my kittens and went empty, could have been the first day or the last but still. And at that time of the year it was getting 6hr of sun

Ha, just checking. D@mn those kittehs.

I'm not saying that sunlight doesn't add another factor, I would just like to believe you could harness some of that energy if you can keep things balanced.

Hey FM, have you ever kept Cherry shrimp with your Dwarf Puffer(s)?

[mellowvision]

I wish you could do that, everyone tells me not to. I would love two Dwarf Puffers and some cherries in the 10 I am setting up. that would be great, but I don't think it would work.

[geofied]

outlander? haha. walstad just doesn't sell products, and people like to consume!

You'd think walstad would be the ultimate, the big acheivement for the freshwater enthusiast. planting a bunch of hairgrass in ecocomplete, and photographing it on a glowing white background with a subtle gradient top to bottom might look nice, but a walstad tank IS nature, just confined.

Yeah, I thought so too, but you've also got folks here that sell the stuff that folks consume (albeit for a bargain, if I do say so myself *winks at Rex*).

Unfortunately, I'm a consumer too, so I love the ideal of au naturelle, but I also love muh gadgets and shiny new stuff. I think it comes down to there are many ways to skin a cat, and some folks like to do it by hanging it by its butt letting gravity do its thing, and some folks like to use a TurboFlayer9200 to do it right-quick. Of course there are others (like me) that get bored waiting for gravity and pick up last years TF8900 model on sale and "git 'er done" halfway through the process.

Anyway, I need to put myself, and that last analogy to bed, so we'll pick this up later.

[geofied]

I wish you could do that, everyone tells me not to. I would love two Dwarf Puffers and some cherries in the 10 I am setting up. that would be great, but I don't think it would work.

Darnit, stop responding, I'm supposed to be sleeping:lipssealedsmilie:

If you go on the DP forums, folks there say they mix them and things are fine. I'm a-scared to though since (though I can't prove it) all my ghost shrimp vanished when I introduced my DP to my tank a while back. The good news is that I bought 5 more ghost shrimp a couple of weeks ago to help clean up some detritus and for the DP to munch on, and at least 3 are still alive. So either the DP is just eating them slow-like, or he's not hungry enough, or he's lost his appetite for see-thru snacks. I know I get to heaving a bit when I see ghosties eat, reminds me of Slim Goodbody bellydancing.

[geofied]

Ah, almost forgot. If you're interested in Walstad style tanks, you'll enjoy this journal/bloggy thing. Pretty sweet, I do wish some pics were bigger though.

http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/125tank.html

[mellowvision]

Betty knows what she's doin! nice link

All of a sudden, I want to build a trickle down plant filter.

[FishyMatty]

Hey FM, have you ever kept Cherry shrimp with your Dwarf Puffer(s)?

I tried, but I don't blame the Puffs I blame the pair of Apistogrammas that share residence.

[phanmc]

Walstad recommends some sunlight because she encourages allowing the plants to have emerse growth, that way they can draw CO2 from the air and not be limited by it since no CO2 injection is used in her method. With the emersed growth blocking out a portion of light to the lower tank, sunlight hitting from the side is a welcome addition.

[geofied]

Walstad recommends some sunlight because she encourages allowing the plants to have emerse growth, that way they can draw CO2 from the air and not be limited by it since no CO2 injection is used in her method. With the emersed growth blocking out a portion of light to the lower tank, sunlight hitting from the side is a welcome addition.

Of course she also advocates floating plants for blocking light. She goes so far as to say that most aquatic plants are, by nature, shade plants and will still thrive if there is a cover of floating plants. I would like to see more detail and research around this though.

[mellowvision]

that makes sense. I've never been in a lake or stream with as much light as my tank.