Top 4 Aquarium Light Timer (2020 Best Guide For You)

It is a well-known fact that we humans are never perfect. No matter how much we try to be perfect at anything, we tend to do some mistakes at a point in our lifetime. In such an imperfect world, it is no special thing to forget switching off the lights of the aquarium. Anyone can anytime forget to turn off the lights of their aquarium or can keep it on for a long period of time.

There can be many reasons behind this, one of the most common being the busy schedule of ours in which a person even forgets to eat food and other basic daily activities. Keeping the aquarium lights on for a much longer period can lead to harmful algae bloom in your aquarium tanks. With the new inventions and technical discoveries, it has now become possible to keep a check at daily maintenance of the aquarium light switching. As today in the market, we are facilitated with new and highly innovative automated timers, which are scheduled already to switch on and off the aquarium lights as per the requirements of the corals and algae of your aquarium fish tanks background themes 

 

This helps in saving a lot of troubles which can be generated due to a minor delay in switching the lights on or off. Going out of town or away from your aquariums is also not any major issue anymore, with the help of automated timers, you can easily set up the time when to switch off and on the aquarium lights and everything will proceed as scheduled. Here is a step-wise guide to set up the aquarium timers at your aquarium tanks.

Step by Step Setup Guide For An Aquarium Light Timer

It is extremely easy to set up any aquarium light timer in your aquarium. Although, the setup process is different for different aquarium light timers of different brands and manufacturing companies. Moreover, mostly an aquarium light timer would need the following basic steps to be followed while it’s an installation in the aquarium tank –

• Selection of a Proper Light Timer: In the very first step, a person needs to choose accordingly a light timer which can benefit him in all possible ways and is provided with a minimum of disadvantages. It also depends on the aquarium that which type of light timer would be needed for that aquarium. It is suggested that we must always try to buy an aquarium light timer which is of the same brand as is the brand of the aquarium light model of your aquarium. If you’re still confused with which will be the most suitable light timer for your aquarium, then you must know about the brand of your aquarium’s power connector and then buy the light timer of the same manufacturing brand.
• Installing the Timer: Now connect the timer machine to your aquarium tank and connect the power adapter to the light by following the procedure given in the user manual guide provided with the aquarium light timer. Special types of barrel plugs are used in order to connect the aquarium timers to the aquarium tanks. If the timer doesn’t get connected with your aquarium’s plug connector, you would need to buy additional plug connectors.

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• Setup The Lighting Period: It depends on the corals and fishes present in the aquarium that how much and in what order we would need to set up the lighting period. It is a popular myth that providing to much light to the plant species of the aquarium will indulge in an increase in the growth of the plants of the aquarium but there is no truth in this sentence. Instead of providing excess light to the aquarium plants may result in the growth of loads of algae which may cause a problem to the aquarium species. Moreover, if an aquarium consists of only fishes then it can be given off with a continuous 12 hours lighting, but in case you are using an aquarium which consists of plant species too, lighting a period of utmost eight hours is sufficient.

1. Nicrew aquarium light timer

Overview

The new Nicrew aquarium light timer is a single channel Best reef aquarium LED Light timer and is one of the best rated aquarium light timers of all times. The product is provided with manier features including sunrise and sunset modes, natural lighting cycle feature, provided internal memory etc. The size of the barrel plug connectors of this timer is around 2.1 x 5.5mm which is the most suitable and most commonly used size of barrel plugs for the modern aquariums available in the market today.

The brand Nicrew provides us easygoing process and easy steps to install the machine too. This timer can be considered as an easily programmable timer machine and is provided with a highly detailed instruction guide manual which helps us a lot during the installation of the timer to our aquariums. This manual will never let you face any trouble during the installation of the timer.

The timer basically has four buttons hour, minute, set and power. The power button, as obvious by the name, is used to switch on and off the time machine. Set button is used for saving a setting before going for another programming in the timer. Whereas hour and minute buttons are for setting up the time and brightness of light in the light timer. The power button is also used for switching the brightness settings.

One of the most popular feature provided by this light timer is the sunrise and natural sunset modes provided by the machine. This feature helps in making our fishes feel exactly similar as they would feel in the natural sunrise or the natural sunsets. The change in lighting is also not sudden but is slow and gradual which will let the fishes adapt to the lights easily and will not let them stress too much and will eventually make them easily used to to the lighting cycle which is provided to them.

On the other hand if the fishes are exposed to sudden light or sudden darkness, it may cause then stress. There are many options available for us to customize these sunrise and sunset modes by our choice of preference. The timer is provided with six programming blocks in order to set up variable light intensities according to the requirements of the fishes and plant species present in your aquarium. It is also provided with internal memory to save the already set programs in your aquarium timer and can benefit us in case we run out of power suddenly.

Specifications

• Package Dimensions – 5.8 x 3.1 x 0.6 inches
• Item Weight – 1.6 ounces
• Connectors – includes a barrel plug with two connectors
• Light adjustment – brightness adjustable from 1 to 100 percent
• Sunrise and sunset modes – availability of 15 min sunrise and sunset modes

2. Zoo Med AquaSun aquarium timer

Overview

The new Zoo Med AquaSun aquarium timer is one of the most popularly used light timers and is highly known for its versatility and reliability. It is so functioned that it can work with all types of aquarium lamps. This machine can also work with other equipment present in the aquarium (for eg. Air pumps, CO2 regulators). The reason behind the versatile nature of this new Zoo Med AquaSun aquarium timer is that it is also a socket timer.

This is a 24 Hour Programmable light timer that can function with all the available types of aquarium lamps. This aquarium light timer is provided with one plug design. The machines is provided with a natural day and night light cycle for the fishes and plant species of your aquarium tanks. This aquarium light timer is advanced with an indicator too which makes the work with the help of this machine highly usable and easy to work at.

The design of this aquarium timer is highly easy because of its simple analog design. There are barely any instructions int he provided a user manual of this machine which are not clear to us. The instructions provided by the manual are extremely sufficient and using it is very straight forward and easy. In simple words, we can say that it is easy and reliable to use. This aquarium light timer is easily programmable and very practical. The constant and easy working of this machine also helps in making our aquariu

 

m more stable and fishes happier.

Specifications

• Product Dimensions – 4.3 x 3.5 x 8.8 inches
• Item Weight – 2.88 ounces
• Type of timer – socket timer
• Features – dimmable, with sunrise and sunset modes

3. Koval aquarium light dimmer/timer

Overview

The newly designed and highly advanced Koval aquarium light dimmer and a timer is one of the most popularly used aquarium light timers of all time. This digital timer is specifically built with two-panel barrel plug connectors. This light dinner can be used with LED light fixtures of the brand Koval. This timer is provided with an LCD display which will eventually make the use of the timer easier and efficiently programmable.

The machine uses a 24-hour clock system which lets us set time according to our choice whether it is for 1 min or 24 hours. The setting up of time is extremely easy. You can simply press the + button for increasing the time and similarly can press the – button for decreasing the time. With the help of a red digital display you can easily monitor your time and other settings. The timer also comes with dimming the light function which allows you to vary the brightness of light from one to ten brightness levels in order to fulfill the requirements of your aquarium fishes and the plant species living and growing inside it.

The machine is also provided with two nicely built suckers which help in making it easier for us to stick to the exterior of the fish tank. This highly upgraded and colorful spectrum is specifically built and considered to be a great choice all the aquariums available in the market today. This time not only helps the algae to grow at a faster rate but also make your aquatic plants grow with more vivid colors and helps in giving an ornamental value to set up your background of aquarium tanks.

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Specifications

• Product Dimensions – 4 x 5 x 1 inches
• Item Weight – 2.8 pounds
• Features – dimmable and brightness can be adjusted from 1 to 100%, provided with sunrise and sunset modes
• Connectors – provided with two-pin barrel plug connectors

4. Current USA Single Ramp Timer

Overview

The new Current USA Single Ramp timer is specially designed to be worked with Current USA Satellite Freshwater 7 best-LED light fixtures. This aquarium lighting timer can also work as a 24 hour light controller which helps us by mimicking the natural lighting cycle of a day with the help of the sunrise and sunset modes. The time period of around fifteen minutes is provided with which the light gradually varies its intensity according to the requirement of the plant species and fishes present in the aquarium.

This aquarium light timer benefits us by decreasing the stress levels of the aquarium species as it avoids the sudden light changes and allows the slow changing of the light intensities. The machine is also set with instant on and off process as if you are not squired with using the mode of ramp-up and dim downtime periods. With the help of an hour button, you can easily turn your lights on and off. The on and off feature will automatically get displayed on the LCD. With these main features and specifications, the Current USA Single Ramp timer machine can be considered to be one of the most significantly used ramp timers of all time.

Specifications

• Product Dimensions -3.2 x 0.8 x 2.2 inches
• Item Weight – 2.4 ounces
• Features – highly dimmable according to the adjustments, 15 minutes cycle of sunrise and sunset period modes
• Connectors – a good quality barrel plug