# Can a Tank be too Bright for Bettas?



## Nicci Lu (Jan 7, 2013)

I've got plans to introduce live plants to my tank, so I went out today to buy some CFLs. I previously had incandescents. The CFLs I got are 13w, and there are two of them so I've got a total of 26w, and they are 6500k daylight bulbs. The tank looks _sooo_ bright now, and I don't have any live plants yet to diffuse the light. All that's in the tank right now is one large silk plant and a cave. My tank is 10 gal and it is a little over 10 and a half inches tall (not counting the black frame).

Do you think that this much light will bother/stress my betta? Should I take out one of the bulbs until I get the plants?


----------



## CJR66204 (Jan 16, 2013)

I would only leave it one for about 8 hours at a time because bettas do like to sleep just like us, they have natural cycle that evolve around day and night. Bettas also do not like to be indirect sunlight.


----------



## callistra (Jun 29, 2010)

I have 36w in my 10g and guy is fine. Just make sure to not run them too long, like the above user said. Mine turn on with sunrise and go off before sunset. 8-10 hours.


----------



## Kytkattin (May 15, 2011)

I would just leave them off until you can get your plants. A nice surface growing plant like frogbit or duckweed will help a lot, especially if you only have a few plants at first. I too have the same amount of lights on my 10 gallon and the lighting is crazy so I have it super heavily planted, so he can get to some darker spots, or at least out of direct light!


----------



## Nicci Lu (Jan 7, 2013)

Thanks. I always turn my lights on when I wake up and then off when the sun goes down. I remember reading that bettas don't get strong light in the wild and aren't really fond of it, so I was wondering about using the amount of light that I have now. When I turned the light on, he started getting super active- I couldn't tell if it was a this-is-not-cool active or a this-is-really-different active. I'll just leave them off for now since he's not in a dark shadowy corner. Perhaps I'll take one out for when I do need the light to see in the tank. I've got some frogbit coming in the mail for my first plant- hopefully it will help till I can get more.


----------



## Kytkattin (May 15, 2011)

Frogbit really is a great plant. And since you have the right lighting it should grow really fast for you. Though if you have a filter I will warn you that it impedes the growth of my duckweed (actually, it kills it after a couple of weeks). So while I don't know if the same will be true for frogbit (my planted tank as above does not have a filter), keep that in mind if after a week or so there does not seem to be more, or especially if there seems to be less frogbit.


----------



## Nicci Lu (Jan 7, 2013)

Does it kill the duckweed because the filter causes it to get submersed in water? I've read of people with duckweed and filters who end up with it all in one corner of the tank because of the current. I have a water bottle baffler right now- do you think that if I add a filter sponge to the output as well, it might increase my frogbit's chance of survival? I've heard that some bettas like to play in the frogbit's roots, and I'm excited to see how Adorable Fish likes them. But I'm way too much of a newbie at fishkeeping to try a non-filtered tank. Heck, if wasn't for this site, Adorable Fish would have been a goner.

Since we're on the topic of frogbit... can you dip frogbit? I bought it off of ebay, and want to make sure that I'm not adding any nasties to the tank. So I was thinking about doing an H2O2 or alum dip (the idea of bleach scares me and I can't get any potassium permanganate). But I seem to remember that frogbit will die if completely submersed in water. Should I just QT it for a couple weeks instead?


----------



## itsuki (Jan 10, 2013)

ive added a pre filter sponge (onto the intake/input) and a sponge filter before the output to slow down the current and now the current is so little that Nemo is making bubbles as close as 4 inches away from the output!! i do have the plastic baffle on the output as well. thinking about getting duckweed myself


----------



## Nicci Lu (Jan 7, 2013)

I had a water bottle baffler, but then I took it off because I was afraid Adorable Fish was shredding his fins on it- turned out, though, that the little stinker was biting his tail. Instead, I put a long sponge around the lip of the output so that it was raised above the lip. The surface didn't ripple at all. Then I started to worry about there not being any surface agitation, so I moved the sponge down a tad so there is just a bit of waterfall that flows down from the output. Perfect, there is just a slight bit of ripple, and once my frogbit find its spot, it stays there. And the frogbit is distributed nicely, not just clumped together in one spot. We'll see if it starts to multiply, though, but so far so good. I've only had it for a few days now and the roots are still growing back.


----------



## Picasso84 (Feb 11, 2013)

How has ur frogbit done w/ ur filter baffle/sponge set-up thus far?


----------



## Nicci Lu (Jan 7, 2013)

It's growing, but very slowly. I think it has to do with something other than my filter flow, though, because I only got it to stop dying when I added other plants. At the time I first added it, the frogbit was my only plant. I had to increase my surface agitation a bit because I added otos to the tank, so if I'm not careful the frogbit zooms right to the outflow and gets sucked under. The only way I've gotten it to stay in one place is by using my floating hornwort as a sort of divider.


----------

