I'm Back with a Light Timer Question...

**kurly** · 01-19-2012, 12:13 AM

Okay, I have been using my light timer for about a week now and am loving it. I need to reduce the hours my lights are on due to a little algae and want to do that with a 4 hour on period, 2 hour off period, and then another 4 hour on period and then off for the night.

I set the timer to do that but for some reason either it's not cooperating or I'm not doing something right.

Can a timer be set to go on, then off, then on again each day? Or can it only be set to go on once and off once during a 24 hour period?

**kurly** · 01-19-2012, 01:16 AM

I'm sure it's operator error (ME!) Think I'm making it more complicated than what it actually is....I'll figure it out and try again tomorrow.

**Trillianne** · 01-19-2012, 01:28 AM

Depends on the timer. Some have the ability to set different on off schedule and some do not.

Check your owners manual.

For mine, its little pegs (green = on, red = off) and I move them to the times I want it to go on an off. If I were to get hands on enough of those buggers I could have a light timer flasher ¬.¬

**kurly** · 01-19-2012, 01:48 AM

lol.. what owners manual? All I have is a little square paper about 3 inches big which tells me that the "dark line means night". I don't have green and red pegs, mine are all gray. Wish I would have changed my light schedule BEFORE I picked up this timer from PetSmart. And of course I already threw the receipt and package away!

Oh well, I'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Thanks for helping :)

**Brhino** · 01-19-2012, 01:50 AM

some of my timers have a circle with little pegs all around it that you can push up or down depending on if you want the light on or off. Timer like that could be turned off and on every 15 minutes if you wanted.

Some other timers can only turn on and off once per day.

I believe the "split photoperiod to reduce algae" idea has been debunked, though. Not positive.

**kurly** · 01-19-2012, 02:04 AM

I have the timer you are talking about, the one that has what seems like a zillion pegs around the circle. I want a break in time that the light is on my tall anubias plant. Someone on here mentioned that they have that schedule and suggested that I try it. I'm not expecting the algae to totally disappear just want to give it a try and see what happens.

I'm already reducing my light time from 10 hours per day to 8 which I'm sure will make most of the difference anyway.

Hopefully I'll get it all figured out tomorrow.

**kurly** · 01-19-2012, 02:26 PM

Well, light clicked on at 10:15 a.m. (thought I set it for 10:00 am but close enough) We'll see if the light goes off at 2:00 (2:15) and back on again at 4:00 (4:15)

**Brhino** · 01-19-2012, 02:30 PM

if it's the kind I'm thinking of, you can rotate the wheel by hand to simulate going through a whole day quickly, and see when it turns off and on.

**Lady Hobbs** · 01-19-2012, 03:41 PM

Sounds like you don't have the timer to give you different settings. I find no reason for lights to be going off and on during the day anyway. In the wild, it's morning and it's night. It doesn't suddenly get night at 3 PM for a couple hours then the sun comes out again?

Just set your lights to be on 8 hours a day and make this easy. If you work all day, set the lights so you get some evening viewing hours.

**kurly** · 01-19-2012, 03:46 PM

That was my question to the person who does it this way. Don't want to get my fish all confused.

I'll probably end up turning them on later in the day so we can view the fish more at night but for now since I went through all this trouble I want to see if it will do it. Even if it's just for one day!