What You Should Know About Aquarium Lighting

Aquarium lighting is both a design feature and a practical necessity. The soft inner illumination of a lighted aquarium makes it a beautiful element of room decor. And both the fish and the live plants in your aquarium require light to thrive. But determining how much light the fish and plants need, and controlling that amount, can be tricky.

How Much Light Is Needed?

In general, most aquariums require eight to 12 hours of light each day (10 hours is a good starting point), provided by aquarium lights. But this is a large range, and determining just how long your aquarium lights need to be turned on each day depends on several factors:

• The number and type of live plants in the aquarium
• How much ambient lighting is already present in the room
• The species of fish in your aquarium
• The algae level in the aquarium

Light Needs for Live Aquatic Plants

A primary reason for using supplemental aquarium lighting is to provide the light necessary for living aquatic plants to perform their necessary photosynthesis. Just like land-based plants, aquatic plants use light to synthesize food from carbon dioxide and water, and they obtain this light both from ambient room light and from supplemental aquarium lighting. 

If there are live plants in the aquarium, the supplemental lighting period will probably need to be maximized. Plants require as much as 12 hours of light per day, but the precise length of time will depend on the aquarium setup and species of plants. If, on the other hand, your tank has no living aquatic plants, your lighting needs will be less—only what is necessary for the fish.

It is usually recommended that the aquatic plants in your aquarium be matched to the type of fish you are keeping: tropical plants for tropical fish aquariums; temperate cold-water plants for aquariums with cold-water species. Light levels should also be chosen to match the natural environment of the plants.

Tropical plants that will thrive on roughly 12 hours of light each day, all year long, include the banana, Amazon, Java, and water fern plants. Cold water plants that do best with seasonal variations in light levels include the Anubias species and tiger lotus.

When you introduce new live plants to your aquarium, it is best to leave the light on for longer times; this gives the plants a better chance to take root and grow vigorously when being established.

Ambient Room Lighting

Determining the length of time to run your aquarium lights will depend on how much ambient light is already in the room. It is even possible that you will need no additional lighting at all, if, for example, your aquarium is in a bright south-facing sunroom with lots of windows or an active family room where ceiling lights and lamps are on most of the time. Ambient room lighting is often rather indirect, though, and chances are good that no matter how much light already is present in the room, you will need to run aquarium lights each day. But a room with good ambient lighting will not need 12 hours of aquarium lights.

It is also good to leave the aquarium lighting on longer in the winter when natural light is less due to the season. This will promote better growth and healthier aquarium plants. As the days lengthen, the aquarium lighting period can be shortened. 

Light Needs for Different Fish Species

When it comes to the fish themselves, aquarium lighting is mostly about you, not them. Lighting in an aquarium makes it easier for you to see and enjoy your fish, but it usually does not affect the fish all that much. The nature of an aquarium, with its four glass sides and relatively small size, means that most fish are getting more light than they do in natural settings, whether or not you are using supplemental lights. Most fish do not mind getting more light.

A few species, such as cichlids and tetras, thrive on less light, and for these, too much supplemental aquarium lighting may affect them negatively.

Consider the conditions that a species experiences in the wild when determining how much extra lighting, if any, is required. Tropical fish have evolved under conditions that provided roughly 12 hours of light each day, so logic suggests that an aquarium with tropical fish will likely need a combination of ambient and aquarium lighting for roughly half the day.

On the other hand, cold-water species such as goldfish, minnows, ricefish, and danios (zebrafish) are from temperate climate zones where the daylight hours vary according to the season. For these fish, you might want to vary the amount of light over the year. To create a more natural environment, match the length of aquarium lighting to what the species experiences in its native environment. 

Light and Algae Levels

If excess algae is a problem in the aquarium, a contributing factor is usually too much light. Too much light causes more algae growth. Reduce the time the aquarium lights are on to eight hours, or a bit less if necessary, to help reduce the algae growth.

Monitoring algae levels can, therefore, help you determine if your lighting levels are appropriate. If you begin to see excessive algae, shorten the periods of light to retard the algae growth. But remember, you do not want to have too little light on for the aquarium plants,

Direct sunlight tends to create more algae than does artificial light. An aquarium near a sunny window may require less supplemental lighting than one on an interior wall. 

Controlling Lighting in Your Aquarium

The biggest obstacle to maintaining a uniform period of aquarium lighting is that owners find it difficult to turn the lights on and off at the same time each day. Fortunately, there is an inexpensive and easy way to remedy that problem. Purchase an on-off timer and plug the lighting unit into it. Set the on and off times to obtain the desired period of light. On-off timers are highly recommended for all aquarium owners.

Aquarium Lights and Heat

Remember that aquarium lights may not only produce light—but many produce heat, and sometimes a lot of it. Lighting types that produce heat include incandescent, VHO-fluorescent, and metal halide. In smaller aquariums, these types can cause a significant rise in water temperature, sometimes enough to kill your fish and plants. If you use one of these types of lights, make sure to monitor the water temperature constantly, and avoid leaving the lights on overnight. 

Standard fluorescent lights produce cooler light and are a better choice for most aquariums. You can leave them on for long periods without danger, and many tropical fish and plants thrive under fluorescent lighting. Light Emitting Diode (LED lights) come in a variety of colors and are inexpensive to run and they are cool in operation.

​Aquarium Lighting Tips

True aquatic plants must be kept wet at all times or else they might die. Do not run them under running water, the chlorine can damage or even kill the plants. If you see a whitish slime on plants, this slime layer is good bacteria. Fish eat it, it is entirely natural, and is part of what keeps an aquarium in homeostasis.

Ensure that live plants are well anchored in the substrate. Do not plant in big thickets (bunches or clumps). The plants need room to grow and get full light on all the branches and leaves. Your fish should be able to swim cleanly around and through your aquarium plants.

Many aquarium plants can increase their numbers naturally. Vallisneria and similar plants send out runners under the substrate, which then sprout next to the parent plant. You can cut away the runners and replant them to start a new thicket.