How long do you leave your lights on for?

[souly]

I'm curious what everyone usally runs their lighting for? And if you use Lunar lights.

Like example:
from 8am-10pm etc

Since I don't have a timer, I turn them on when I wake up, and usally off around bed time.

[AmyLynn]

I use a timer for all of my lights. It's more consistent for the fish. The daylights come on at 8 in the morning and go off at 8 at night. The moonlights are set to come on at 7 at night at go off at midnight.

I know many say that the lights are simply for us, but I know I certainly wouldn't want to live in the dark to near dark. Nor would I want to have the lights go on and off randomly. So I try to keep their schedule consistent.

[Lab_Rat]

I turn mine on when I get home from work, turn them off when I go to bed. Weekends they're usually on a bit longer.

[Northernguy]

12-14hrs a day.
I have night lights for night veiwing.

[cfgsteak]

I was starting to have high phosphates...I cut my lights back from 14 hours a day to 10...and gradually continuing to move the lighting time back to 8 hours. Plants seem to be doing better already, which I wasn't expecting right away.

[aspects]

8-10hours for most tanks. Any longer and you're just asking for algae.

[korith]

For me all the tank lights are on timers. The amount of light varies in each tank, took me a while to figure out how many hours worked best in each tank. Most of the tanks have lights on 6-8hours. Just enough light so they grow, but not too much that I have algae to deal with.

[wolf_eyes]

I used to have my lighting on from 9am to 11pm (14 hours) but I have a bad hair algae problem so right now i cut it down to 10 am to 10 pm. I'm going to see if that takes care of the algae, otherwise I'll cut it down again. My biggest tank, however, is the only one with a timer. The other one are usually turned on when i get home from work to when I go to bed.

[aspects]

at 12hrs, you will probably still have an algae problem.

[rhonin]

I turn them on generally about the same as daylight

For now (winter) on at 7, off at 5
For summer, on at 6, off at 7

I may adjust this if I need.
Also I will frequently turn off the light in the afternoon for those tanks that get a fair bit of natural light (indirect).