Blackout Blanket to Kill GHA?

[HawkeyeDJ]

I'm not keen on adding lots of chemicals to my new tank (5 months old). I've got some GHA I'd like to get rid of, so this thought occurred to me.

Could I make a blackout blanket from some heavy dark plastic garbage can liner, weigh it down at the corners by gluing some frag plug material to the plastic and covering the unwanted GHA? Would the lack of any light eventually kill the GHA? If so, how long would it take?

I have very few corals, so they would not be affected. My CUC (Trocus snails) have not been all that helpful.

I'd like to hear others' thoughts on this idea. Is it a viable idea? A waste of time? A hazard?

 

[Jekyl]

Take a breath and grab a beer. The ugly phase can't be avoided. Adding tons of chemicals and going to all kinds of extremes are just that, extreme. Remove what you can by hand during water changes, bolster your CuC, reduce white light, keep parameters in order. That's all you need to do. GHA is popping up because that's just the phase your tank is in. If you cover it in one spot it will just grow somewhere else. Algae of all sorts is just part of the adventure of using dry rock.

 

[Gqch]

trust me! dont blackout the tank! hurt way more than help! simply introduce few tangs and reef safe urchin, and keep blue and purple light for a week....then after that, you need buying algae for then lol

 

[HawkeyeDJ]

trust me! dont blackout the tank! hurt way more than help! simply introduce few tangs and reef safe urchin, and keep blue and purple light for a week....then after that, you need buying algae for then lol

It's a 24g cube. No tangs for this tank. Maybe an urchin . . .