Light timing

[Predatorhousepet]

I bought a timer to control the lights on my terrariums. At first I was going to do 12 hours on/12 off for the plants but then realized that might not be optimal for the mantises. Will they be okay with that schedule or do I need to change it to something else? 

 

[CosbyArt]

@Predatorhousepet I set mine for 14 hours of lights on for the typical light cycle of late spring/summer, and is found to be the optimal amount for culturing feeders (such as crickets) too. Also you can use a small nightlight for use as moonlight for your pets. See the posts in the thread below for more details...

 

[Predatorhousepet]

Ok, thanks. I was kinda already doing that manually. I have a remote controlled variable color LED that I turn on at night when I turn off the main lights. I usually choose blue or purple to simulate a nightscape. I didn't have a set time for the lights, I just turned them off when I went to bed but that was kinda all over the place so I figured a timer would make things a lot easier. I ended up buying a fancy wifi controlled surge protector that has timer functionality...so I am able to control the lights with my phone or just leave it set with the timer function.

 

[CosbyArt]

@Predatorhousepet Sounds like most I imagine. Waiting for the "sun" to get turned on each day for it to be late or early several hours (and off varying) has got to be outright strange though.

Great to hear and sounds nice. With being WIFI if you ever wanted to get fancy you could run a program to simulate various lighting for stormy/cloudy/overcast/sunny/etc days.

 

[Predatorhousepet]

I was mainly trying to make their night/day cycle less chaotic because that can't be healthy for them (or me for that matter but a timer isn't going to fix my issues) but that is an interesting idea. I hadn't even considered wifi would  be able to do something like that but it would make their sunlight follow more natural patterns.