How much light does a betta fish require?

[McGibs]

Hello beta fish lovers! I'm new to this community and this is my first thread. I know I should just Google my question, but I like fresh opinions on these matters, after all, these fish are our little friends!

I've never needed to ask myself this question regarding light for my past betas because they were in a different part of my house which had natural light shining in, then the inevitable dark, so I would assume that is how a beta likes it.

My new beta, Fernando the second (he's royalty) is in a place where there's constant shade and in general, hardly no light unless I shine my lamp on the bowl for some artificial light. So I would like to know how much light this fish requires, does it need natural light? lots of light or does it prefer the dark and shady atmosphere. Thanks guys and gals!

[McGibs]

Anyone? This little betta has not seen much light since I got him.

[Chicklet]

I've read where people say fish don't need light its more for our own pleasure.
However It's natural to have it from sun up to sun down,
Just like you or I, we wake up with the light and go to sleep with the sun down..( or so were suppose too :)

I give all mine light, It gets turned on when I get up and goes out when I retire for the night..
A few times I happened to be watching a betta and his light burned out, He knew it and immediately went up to check it out and wouldn't settle until I gave him a new light...

A light would be a good thing in my opinion, besides its makes a tank look better and much more enjoyable to admire..

[Nataku]

Fish all possess a circadian rhythm, just like you or I. And just like humans, some species of fish are early birds, while others are night owls. Irregardless of which betta are, they still need a somewhat stable light source to help maintain this rhythm.

Does it need to be natural sunlight? No, not at all. Tank lights or the light of the room they are kept in (if they aren't sitting in some shadowy corner of your room) work just as well. You just have to remember to turn those off, whereas the sunlight does that on its own every night.
Natural sunlight is much more like to cause an algae bloom in your water, which is not necessarily something you will normally really want, as this tends to foul the water very quickly, and with algae comes bacteria, and bacterial infections. Also, direct sunlight (aka sticking your betta on a windowsill) in a small jar can often cause extreme temperature fluctuations, being as the glass/plastic/acrylic tanks/jars tend to act like a magnifying glass.

[McGibs]

Thank you all very much for the replies! I will take all these things into consideration.