The Puffer Forum

I've been getting conflicting information with regards to how much lighting these fish need.
What have you guys been doing? Do they even need a light?

Low to moderate lighting is sufficient for their needs IMHO.

If you have no coral or plants, then you can use low lighting, and 6 - 8 hours is great. They don't really "need" light per se, but they do need a light/dark - day/night cycle.

It's definitely not as important if you don't have plants that need it. As long as you are happy with how it makes your tank appear, and you leave it off at night, you're good to go. I keep all of my puffers in moderate light and they do great.

Ah, ok. I don't have live plants or coral, and my room is lit pretty moderately.
It's just that the hood I have on the tank has a light in it, some special "natural"
light-bulb that came with it and I don't know if I should turn it on for the puffer
or not. I don't actually have the puffer yet anyway, so it's not like I'd be ruining
his normal day/night cycle.

All of my tank lights are on timers. Fish have circadian rhythms just as other lifeforms do. Regularity is non-trivial to them - and to us. Timers are cheap. Use them.

Puffer in general are not good with corals or many other higher inverts. SW macroalgae generally need rather high light and may likely be eaten by the puffers, so are best incorporated in separate refugia. Cutting and harvested algae can be offered to the puffer as veggie treats and may well be relished by the fish, but are best cultivated away from the fish.

Timers for all mine, too.

I had timers on my salt and planted tank, but they'd reset if there was a power outage, so I canned them. I just make sure to turn the lights on at roughly the same time everyday (or my roommate if I'm not home). I don't think that a half hour or hour (if even that long) of variance in your light cycle everyday (not sure if my grammar is adequate here lol) will cause any harm to your fish.

When you have serious MTS and tanks in multiple locations on more than one floor, electronic timers with memory or centralized electronic controllers are to me a basic requirement.

When I have systems with three or more light cycles within one series of tanks, manual operation of lights is a practical impossibility. My tanks are for pleasure, not to keep my occupied 24/7.