Lighting/Photo Period Influence on Breeding

[jwcarlson]

I've been mulling this over in my head for a long time.  Because of my schedule, I split my lighting into two splits.  From 5-8 AM and 4-8 PM.  This is so have a shot at observing my fish.  Has anyone noticed a split schedule being an influence either good or bad on spawning of fish?  I know some fish are dawn spawners, but I wonder if there could be any detrimental effects from having two periods like that.  Could it confuse the fishs' internal clocks?  Asking specifically in regards to egg laying fish that exhibit parental care.  If a mother expects eggs to hatch within some reasonable time, could having two sunrises per day throw that off?

I'm probably overthinking it, but it's been something that's been bothering me for awhile.  In particular with my apistos.  I've been on vacation this week and I am putting two new bedrooms in the basement, so I have overhead room lights on far more than normal the last few days as I'm working down there during the normally dark period.  And it seems like the apistos behave at least a bit differently than they do on normal nights.  I actually left the room lights on from about noon until 8 today because of this.  I'd consider a more dim room light or "night light" but worry that would cause an issue with algae.

It's important to note that there's VERY little light outside of the aquarium lights in my fish room unless the room lights are on.  Typically they are not and it's dark enough even during midday that you can't really walk around without the lights on.  Especially now that I've got walls going up between the small basement windows and the fish.

[Fish Folk]

This is an excellent question. In my limited experience, sometimes egg laying New World species will treat lights-on / lights-off like mental resets. Cichlids, in particular, sometimes eat eggs / fry when lights go suddenly out and then on.

Call me insane . . . but I'd consider maybe doing a full 5-8 pm photo period, but mute the lighting by using something. I do long photo periods (ca. 7 am - 9 pm) but use cupboard liner under lights as a diffuser. Here's a look at how that actually looks in my fishroom...

 

[tolstoy21]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:49 PM, Fish Folk said:

Call me insane . . . but I'd consider maybe doing a full 5-8 pm photo period, but mute the lighting by using something.

I have a light cycle about the same as that, 6am - 8:30pm. 

Like @jwcarlson, I run this schedule mostly because it works for the hours I'm typically free to care for and enjoy my fish -- I have free time at 6am, and then again after 7pm. I don't set my the light go off mid-day as that feels like an unnatural light cycle to me. But I have no evidence to back up that feeling.

I run very subdued lighting on a number of my tanks, mostly apistos and tetras.  The ambient light from the room and other tanks does little to impact the dimness of these aquariums. Other tanks, shrimp and plecos, get much higher lighting, but they manage to keep algae at bay. 

Edited November 27, 2023 by tolstoy21

[jwcarlson]

I've been toning down my lights, but I think maybe I will drop them a bit more and leave them on longer.  I'm nervous to just jump into it and end up battling an algae farm.  I kind of just got the apisto tanks under control in that regard.