Design and installation
Below the waterline the rules change. Color behaves differently, the tide moves the surface, and salt water goes to work on everything. What you see under your dock is decided by the water as much as by the light.
Tell us about the dock
NightScapes project
If you are choosing a color
If you are trying to choose between green, white and blue for your dock, start with your water. In a clear bay, white shows the bottom and blue looks rich. In a tannin-stained canal, green is the usual choice because it carries. After heavy rain everything is shorter. Depth is set so the fixture stays under at low tide. Answer four questions about yours.
Question 1 of 4
On a calm day, what is the water like under your dock?
Question 2 of 4
What is the light mostly for?
Question 3 of 4
What is across the water from you?
Question 4 of 4
What else is lit on the property?
Where each answer leads
Our answer
Makers say green carries furthest in the greenish, slightly cloudy water of a canal, and it is the color most associated with drawing bait. From the dock it reads as a wide, even glow. From the house it is the strongest color on the property and will lead whatever else is lit.
See green on the dock above →Our answer
White shows the water as it is: the bottom, the pilings, the fish in their own colors. In clear water over sand it is beautiful. In stained or silty water much of it scatters close to the lens, so the pool is smaller and hazier. From the house it sits with warm landscape lighting more easily than green.
See white on the dock above →Our answer
Blue gives deep, saturated water and suits a modern property. It tends to light less of the water than green for the same fixture, and in tannin-stained canal water it can look dim, so it is at its best where the water is clear.
See blue on the dock above →Our answer
Not everyone agrees that green is best for fishing; at least one published snook guide prefers amber or white at a dock. Amber is also the easiest on the eyes and the least likely to bother anyone across the water. It does not travel far, which on some canals is the point.
Glare, neighbors and boats →Our answer
Most of the advice about dock lights comes from people selling them. The same fixture gives three different results in three different canals, and the water changes after a summer storm. So we look at your water first and talk through the colors with you before anything is fixed.
Ask about your dock →Underwater light color
Water does not treat colors alike. Makers of dock lights say green travels furthest through the greenish, particle-filled water of a canal, while white scatters close to the lens and blue falls away in stained water. Anglers do not all agree, and at least one published guide prefers amber. Point at a color to see it on this dock.
The color most often sold for docks. Makers say it carries furthest in the greenish, slightly cloudy water of a canal, and it is the color most associated with drawing bait. From the dock it reads as a wide, even glow. From the lanai it is unmistakable.
White shows the water as it is: the bottom, the pilings, the fish in their own colors. In clear water over sand it is beautiful. In stained or silty water much of it scatters close to the lens, so the pool is smaller and hazier than the same fixture gives in green.
Blue is chosen for how it looks from the house. It gives deep, saturated water and it suits a modern property. It tends to light less of the water than green for the same fixture, and in tannin-stained canal water it can look dim.
Not everyone agrees that green is best for fishing. At least one published snook guide prefers amber or white light at a dock. Amber is also the easiest on the eyes and the least likely to bother anyone across the water. It is a choice with reasons on both sides.
A NightScapes dock on a canal. The color shown is laid over the photograph to illustrate each choice; the real water was lit in several colors when this was taken.
Placement
An underwater fixture has to stay submerged at the lowest tide and still show at the highest. It sits off the dock far enough to light open water and clear of the bottom so silt does not bury it. Pilings, the seawall and the boat lift decide where it can be fixed. Move the tide and the fixture below to see why.
Under at low tide, clear of the bottom. The pool spreads and softens, it lights open water off the end of the dock, and it stays clear of the lift.
The tide in a Naples canal is modest, but it is enough to matter. A fixture placed at a comfortable depth on a high tide can be at the surface, or out of it, on a low one. Out of the water it overheats and lights the underside of the dock. So the position is found at low water, and the question is how the same fixture will look when there is more water over it.
Near the surface the light is bright and the pool is small, and the fixture is where barnacles grow fastest. Deeper, the pool spreads and softens, and less of the light reaches your eye. Close to the bottom, it lights the sand and stirs up nothing, until silt settles on the lens. There is no single right depth to quote; sources that give one disagree with each other, and the right answer for your dock is found with a fixture on a line.
Pilings, the seawall and the dock frame are the mounting points, and the boat lift is the thing to stay clear of. A fixture has to be held against current and against a hull or a line that brushes it, and it has to come up again for cleaning. Where the boat lives matters as much as where the light looks best.
Water varies from dock to dock. Open bay water can sit over clear water and pale sand. A dock at the head of a long canal sits over darker, stiller water with more in it. Both change after a summer storm, when runoff clouds everything for days. The same fixture gives three different results in three different canals, which is why it is tried in yours.
The boards above are lit separately and far more quietly: lighting the dock boards, steps and rails. How the dock relates to the lawn, the palms and the house behind it is part of how the dock ties into the rest of the property.
Bait and fish
Makers of underwater lights describe a chain: light draws tiny organisms, those draw baitfish, and baitfish draw larger fish such as snook. Many dock owners see exactly that. Nobody can promise it, because it depends on the canal, the season, the tide and how long the light has been running.
The usual account is that it takes a few nights. The light runs, small life collects in it, and then the schools arrive. After that it becomes a thing people walk down to the dock to watch after dinner. The photograph beside this paragraph was taken under a dock we lit.
Some canals are busy with fish and some are not, and a light does not change that. Water temperature, salinity after rain, the time of year and the state of the tide all move fish around. We will light the water properly. What comes to look at it is up to the canal.
Sellers generally say green draws the most life. A published snook guide has said he prefers amber or white on a dock. Both can be right in different water. If fishing is the reason you want the light, say so, and we will set it up so the color can be changed: see choosing color and level zone by zone.
Materials
The waterline is the harshest place on a property. Below it, salt water attacks coated metals, wicks along copper through a poor connection, and eats one of any two different metals left touching. So the fixture, its bracket and its fasteners are matched, connections are made above the water and sealed, and cable is secured.
Salt water attacks any metal that relies on a coating, from the first scratch. An underwater fixture for a tidal canal has a body in a metal chosen for immersion, and a lens sealed against pressure as well as splash. The thing to watch for is a fixture made for a pond: fresh water and a tidal canal are different jobs.
Water wicks along copper, and one poor connection lets salt into the whole cable. So connections are made above the water, sealed, and kept where they can be reached. Cable is secured along the pilings, not left loose under a dock, where current, debris and a boat can find it.
Below the waterline, two different metals touching is a slow fire.
Two different metals touching in salt water form a cell, and one of them is eaten. The fixture, its bracket and its fasteners are matched, and kept clear of the lift and the boat. The classic mistake is a stainless screw in a bronze bracket. It looks fine for a season.
Upkeep
Anything left still in salt water grows a coat. Barnacles and algae settle on a lens and the light dims month by month, fastest in the warm season. Suppliers note that cool-running LED fixtures foul sooner than older hot lamps did, so cleaning is part of owning one. It is quick when the fixture can be reached.
It is part of a maintenance visit, and after a storm it is the first thing checked: putting a waterfront system right after a named storm.
Ask about your dockBelow the dockNightScapes Landscape Lighting
A clean lens is most of the brightness.
On the water
Water carries light a long way, so an underwater fixture is aimed to keep its glow in the water beside your own dock. Light that breaks the surface crosses the canal as glare, and a bright pool in the channel takes away a boater's night vision. Beachfront lots are a separate subject with their own rules.
An underwater fixture is aimed down or outward along the dock, so its light stays in the water column. Aimed up and out, it breaks the surface and travels across the canal as glare. The glow should stop well short of the opposite seawall.
Someone running a boat down the canal at night needs their night vision. A bright pool of light across the channel takes it away. The lit water belongs under and beside your own dock, and the middle of the canal stays dark.
On a Gulf-front lot the rules about light near the beach apply, and they are strict about color, shielding and what may be seen from the sand. That is not a dock question and it has its own page: shielded, long-wavelength light for beachfront lots.
Who does the work
NightScapes Landscape Lighting has lit docks and waterfront properties in Naples since 1998. Todd and Sherry own and run it, outdoor lighting is the only work it does, and its Google Business Profile shows 63 reviews at 5.0. Underwater lights are set at low tide with a fixture on a line, and judged from the lanai.
The docks and the baitfish on this page are NightScapes jobs. We light docks and waterfront across Naples, Marco Island and Bonita Springs, and through Lee and Collier counties.
The same people who set the lights come back to clean them, which on salt water is most of what keeps a dock light worth having.
Ask about your dockThey were especially impressed with the dock lights and underwater lights that Todd put in. You could see all of the fish!!!
Questions we hear
Which color, why green, whether fishing lights work, how many are needed, whether a permit is required, whether they have to be cleaned, how long they last near the coast and whether you can swim with them on. These are the questions dock owners ask, answered without the promises the catalogs make.
NightScapes Landscape Lighting Outdoor lighting only, Naples since 1998 Choose a question
Ask us about your dock. Choose a question, or call and we will answer it on the phone.
It depends on the water and on what you want. Green is the most common and makers say it carries furthest in canal water. White shows true color and suits clear water. Blue looks dramatic from the house. Amber is quiet and is preferred by some anglers. We would rather show you two colors in your own water than tell you which is best.
Largely because green has become the standard for docks. Makers say green light travels further than other colors through the greenish, particle-filled water of a canal, and that it draws the small organisms baitfish feed on. That explanation comes from the people who sell the lights; we have not found an independent source that settles it, and some anglers prefer amber or white.
Many owners find that bait gathers in the light and larger fish follow it, and one of our own customers wrote that guests could see all of the fish under his dock. It is not something anyone can promise. It depends on the canal, the season, the tide and how long the light has been running.
Often one or two. A single fixture lights a surprising amount of water, and a second is added where the dock is long or where there is a lift or a corner worth lighting separately. More than that usually means more glare across the canal, not a better result.
That is a question for your city or county and, in some communities, the association. Rules for docks and waterways vary and we do not publish them. Ask before you install, and tell us what you are told. Gulf-front and beach-adjacent property has its own lighting rules, covered on our coastal lighting page.
Yes. Barnacles and algae settle on a lens in salt water, and a light that is not cleaned gets dimmer every month. How often depends on the season and the canal. It is quick if the fixture can be reached, which is why reach is decided at install.
We do not quote a life, because it depends far more on the water, the materials and the cleaning than on a figure in a catalog. A fixture built for salt water, with sealed connections and a clean lens, lasts. One that is not is the first thing on a waterfront property to fail.
That is a question for the maker of the specific fixture, and you should follow their instructions for it. We install low-voltage systems as their makers direct. If swimming off the dock is part of how you use it, tell us at the start, because it affects what we recommend and where it goes.
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Free Consultations and Estimates
Tell us where the dock is, how deep the water is at low tide if you know, and whether there is a lift. We look at your dock and water with you and talk through the colors before anything is fixed.
Tell us about the dock
