Night lights

hi everyone!

was reading thru a forum from the states, and came across an article regarding moonlights / light at night:

QUOTE: white light is not "intense" as blue light (blue light cuts right through water), but if you can see your tank inhabitants with those lights on, then IMO they are too bright to be left on all night. its not very often you can go on a night reef dive without a flashlight, meaning they are not used to that much light at night. if I wake up in the middle of the night and look at my tank with a flash light, the only fish I can see are my clowns and catfish, the rest are hiding in the rocks resting, also the clowns stay at their host (rock). when I ran a moon light all night on the tank, the fish would not "rest" they would continually roam the tank all night. END QUOTE

QUOTE 2: +1. I have blue LED's (moonlights) on a separate circuit so that they do not run all night - when I go to bed, they go off (reef critters need their beauty sleep, too!). END QUOTE

i've got a blue light running atm, which goes on about an hour or so after the LED's switch off, and gets turned off when i get up in the morning, which is normally just before / on sunrise... but the above has now made me question my use of lights over the night time period

would this be a possible reason that fish could stress, therefore making them more susceptible to white spot?

anyone have any thoughts on this?? how do u run ur lights between sunset and sunrise??

(sorry for the quotes, wasnt sure if im allowed to reference another forum with a weblink)

cheers!!!

simon

There are only two forums here in Auz that are over the top and are more about supporting shops or the establishers of the forums sell gear so people have to buy rather than create some things them selves and they condemn filtration that removes the needs for skimmers and reactors.

A night-light is not a commonly promoted thing to use, as is the algae for all nutrient removal, not on forums dependant on sponsorship!

I use both of them because I have experimented with these and found their benefits and why, plus I have been scuba and free diving for just on forty years and have seen the functions of many varied forms of marine life to get to the conclusions I have found.

These will never be promoted on forums or web sites that are dependant on sponsorship from businesses that depend on your fish (marine life) dieing, your water quality failing, your lighting being inadequate, mate the net is run mainly by business and its not in their best interest for you to have much success beyond using what they sell!

In the past I knew two marine biologists and a friend knew a big named one as well, these days when I wanted to know something or identify something, I have been calling the museum for possibly 20 years now, I don’t remember exactly how long, they pass me onto the marine biologists that know or some one else if they do not!

The club years ago had two marine biologists in it and a fish farm vet connected with it as well, they were very helpful as there was no money in it from us.

A while ago no one in Auz could identify a type of shrimp found, luckily there was a research group from the states on the barrier reef at the time and the museum put me onto them, so I called and then emailed a pic and they identified it as it was not supposed to be found in Auz waters at all!

I feel for some folks that don’t want to spend 10 grand on here hobby and depend on the net for all information, a lot of the info out there is pure crap,but you don’t realise this until its to late and the tank goes in the shed or in the trading post or given to a mate.

One of the guys spent nearly a hundred grand over three years on his hobby,40 thousand on just one set up and the white spot and velvet and bacteria infections still ran ram pet in his tank and he lost three quarters of everything over those three years, actually it may have been more deaths than that.

That didn’t have to happen, all his info came from the net and mostly one forum, he still defends his original information that his set up was totally designed around, sorry, bought around.

If he had incorporated an aerobic wet section of length and an anaerobic wet section of a larger size and no substrate, the s—t would not have hit the fan for his fish and corals.

He had a miracle mud set up especially imported worth over a thousand dollars,calcium,nitrate and phosphate reactors, Industrial UV sterilisers, there is much more but the one that got me was one of his skimmers was bigger than a medium sized person in height, it was also much wider than a person and it was over 5 thousand dollars.

You see what I am getting at!

He had so much more room than me to create the ultimate reef aquarium, completely successful, mind bogling,but he relied on tech gear only!

My pathetic little reef tank is far more successful and it totally relies on the most condemned forms of filtration here on Auz forums, it copies as much as possible, natural marine functions.

The night light thing is use full as fish do not sleep (per say), they rest when lights are on, not when lights are off, they hide when lights are off for protection based on instincts that they get hunted at night, they stress when things touch them that move at night, they are hunted at night by crabs, mantis shrimps and over sized brittle sea stars in the aquarium you haven’t found yet, these hunters do not do well with night lights..

A night light does not have to be an aquarium light, a cheap little light behind the aquarium that comes on before the aquarium light goes off and remains on until the aquarium comes on is spot on.

My night light is my algae part of the NWMS behind the aquarium that has its lights on for 20 hours per 24 hours,(algae needs some time with no light on to survive well),coming on before the aquarium lights go off and off well after aquarium lights go on.

You see it does not have to be over the aquarium, just not in front of the aquarium, this area should not be overly illuminated at lights off time, the algae in the corals needs time of no photosynthesising and the night feeders need to feel a little safe to come out and clean your tank and with a night light, your fish can just see all of these nights feeders and move out of their way, or they can do it like mine, go behind the rock and be in near full light all night.

I use cheap $6 timers from bunnings or woollies or Kmart, where ever, to control my lights and other things.

Stresses to fish are far more reaching than just the fish do not sleep issue.

Good luck with it simon.

The night light idea has me interested as well, now what do you mean by these wet sections, I thought that they went the same way as the dinosaurs?
What possible benefits do they achieve?

thanks for the reply liquidg!

the only night light i run is a single T5 (?) blue light which isnt overly bright to begin with, but looking at it now it could be a little dimmer, i dont want it too bright, but i dont want it to be completely lights out dark either... im thinking of maybe even getting one or two of those small clip on LED lights (one on each end of the tank)

i need to get hold of some pep or pistol shrimp or something else soon to get a cleaner crew back into the tank, im still reading up on the cleaner crew thing atm, but will look at getting some in the new few weeks (ive read that pep shrimp can prey on smaller inverts?)

since i still rely on shops for livestock, can u pm any recommendations?

trent... have a gander at his tank build thread, he's got a lot of filtration going on that some ppl might say is antiquated, but he's got it sussed and it works well from what ive read so far

cheers!!

simon

Thanks simon,i dont have much time,i have two big days coming up at work.

I while back i had an idea and made a discovery that i can not prove except by my results,a natural part of my systems in relation to a wet section irradicating white spot-protists,i told some one a tiny bit about it tonight.

No one will believe it,like i care,lol,lol.

I will get it on here on when i have time to type it.

You may find it facinating,havent told really any one about it,i dont know why,plus who would believe it!

i reckon i know what ur on about, i saw u mention it in another thread!
looking fwd to reading it and seeing if my minimal knowledge can understand it lol