How do you time/power your planted aquarium?

[jmhart]

Basically, this is what I want.

I want 4 independent switches with independent on/offs per day. I ordered a Coralife Aqualight Single Digital Power Center. I knew that the day/nights weren't independent, but I didn't know that both day timers were timed together.

In order to power on your co2 an hour before lights on, then power on lights, power off lights have way through the day, power on again, and the lights and co2 off at night...what options are available?

 

[mr.key]

you can do two timers (which I do) except for the CO2 on before lights. I use DIY so thats not a problem

 

[Easydoesit]

im planning on doing almost the exact same thing as you jm. why do you want the lights to go off and on again half way through the day? u get a lot of natural light to the tank at one point in the day or something?
im going to get timers, then figure it all out.. but for the co2, i have DIY.. so for that im just going to shut off the heater to the tank of water that the co2 is in an hourish or 2 before lights off, and an hourish before lights on in the AM, though im not sure if this will work great or not.
also, i saw at petsmart an 8-ish outlet thing with independent timers for the outlets. i saw a couple of kinds actually. one of them had separate night plugs and day plugs. i didnt have the time to completely check them out, but i will next trip. i did notice the prices were about $30-$40.00 though.
im either going to invest in one of those or im going to just get separate timers for each plug from walmart. theyre pretty cheap.

 

[gsparsan]

You get timers that you can set on and off as many times as you want, at 15 mins interval. The ones I use are like a plug with a socket at the back, and a 24 hr dial. All around the dial you have small pins you either push in (ON) or pull out (OFF) and you can do it in any combination you like. Ofcourse this means you will need one of these for each equipment. One for line, 1 for CO2, 1 of air pump etc.

I have both the CO2 and the light set at the same times so I have both on the same socket. I also turn off light for a couple of hours during the day because I get plenty of daylight and because I want the lights to be on when I get home so I can enjoy the aquarium.

 

[j_chicago]

I use a digital timer for one daytime light, then the coralife strip for another set of daytime and my moonlights. The mechanical timers (non-digital) don't seem to keep time if they are not perfectly vertical. So I say use the coralife for your lights, and a separate digital timer for your CO2.

 

[Spewn]

I've never had any issues with the mechanical timers, and I've run various models 24/7 for years. Lucky I guess? I don't know.

 

[jmhart]

I guess, more specifically, what products, where did you get them?

 

[Spewn]

The timers I've used have come from wal-mart. They're probably all the same brand, but they've been of *slightly* different design(I think mostly/entirely in how you select the time for on/off).

The ones I have now are "Globe" brand and they give me 1hr increments. They have a wheel of two-position pegs, one position is "on" and one is "off", 24 spaced evenly with the time listed around the dial(indicating am/pm as well, if you care, it's not ncessary as long as you know what the timer is set for).

This lets me, if I want to, cycle things at 1hr intervals etc. I could have gotten 30min or even 15min intervals but they're more expensive and I didn't think I needed them. Haven't so far.

 

[BoredAgain]

I got my timers from Big Lots, $5 a package, each package contains 2 timers. I have 5 of those timers going currently, no issues. I don't remember the brand name of mine though.