After doing some reading over at reefcentral, I’m thinking of trying leaving my lights out for two to three days to contain a small alge outbreak in my tank. the general thought is leaving the lights out will kill off the alge and some believe it also helps the coral color. anyone tried this method?
i did this last month. killed a lot of GHA, didn’t notice anything improved on coral. no damage to anyhing. don’t feed either was the advice i got.be careful and pick out all the dead algae before it gets sucked into the powerheads.
Just remember all those phosphates and nitrates the algae was consuming isn’t going to be consumed and will be in the water.
Do a water change when you fire them back up to remove dead/decaying algae material and you’ll be fine.
Coral will live through it and I know people who used to leave their lights off once a month. But… it is still a good idea to figure out what happened to begin with. Have you measured Nitrates and Phosphates.(Sorry if I asked you that in another thread, too many new people I can’t keep track, lol)
Oh and if the hair algae is really bad I wouldn’t recommend doing this. If the systems has been used to that much algae for a little while it probably effects the pH substantially every day. The lack of a day light period could be a big enough change from the norm to cause harm. Just a word of caution.
the thing is i tested this afternoon and found little if any nitrate and phospate, and i don’t know if its a true reading or if the alge is taking it all up. i do a regular water change each week, 10 gallons of a 70 gallon tank and the water is heated and circulated for 24 hours before hand. the alge is a low growing red type that looks like flower petales when the lights are on, it dosen’t overgrow any corals and it stays on the lr only. when the lights first come on, i see numerous single stalks. i changed both mh bulbs and t5’s last month and i feed only 1 cube of mysis shrimp or enriched brine per day, so i don’t think i’m overfeeding as it disappears within 3 to 4 minutes. i also use only rodi water and the fifters (carbon, sediment and di) where changed at the beginning of the year. any guess what i am dealing with?
If you have an algae problem and can still detect any Nitrates and Phosphates then you likely have a significant nutrient problem. You might try switching back and forth between pellets and frozen every other day. Do you feed algae as well. What all fish do you have and ~ size.
Also how long is your photo period? Day lights on 10 hours a day? 12?
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i also use only rodi water and the fifters (carbon, sediment and di) where changed at the beginning of the year.[/quote]
Having a regular schedual of changing things can be good however do you have a TDS meter as well?
the alge is a low growing red type that looks like flower petales when the lights are on, it dosen't overgrow any corals and it stays on the lr only. when the lights first come on, i see numerous single stalks.
Can You snap a picture of the algae? Sounds like a nice macro algae.
See if you can find anything that looks like it here in the algae data base. click on the names for a picture.
try anything that says red.