moon lights: how bad for plants?

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.
 
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.
 
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...
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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).
 
FishyMatty said:
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.
Click to expand...

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