Blackout time! Help!

[Bradsreeeftank]

So i have 29 gallon biocube and am doing the black out method from today too sunday too remove green hair algea. i also just got a skimmer and chemi pure elite! Im hoping all this together will kill this algea and keep it away! What do you think? Will this method harm coral and fish when i turn lights back on? tips?

 

[fpv930]

A short blackout period will def. not harm the fish and should not harm the corals. The skimmer and the Chemipure will not cure the hair algae. The algea is a result and not the issue. Perform water test and check for phosphate. However, if there is a lot of algae the phosphate might be reading very low.
Manually pull out the algae and perform a water change. Look into a phospate reactor with phos media. That should help.

 

[Reefing Madness]

The method will not hurt the fish or corals. The algae will however come back if you don't solve the problem at hand. Make sure the skimmer is cleaned up well, its going to be working overtime on the 3rd day. You want a 3 day total black out, that means you can't turn the lights on til Monday if you started on Friday.
Whats your phosphate and nitrate reading?

 

[Dalmatia]

This works for hair algae? I thought it only worked on cyano and temporarily?

 

[Eienna]

This works for hair algae? I thought it only worked on cyano and temporarily?

It works mainly on organisms that are at least partially photosynthetic. Algaes of all kinds I can think of are one of those.

 

[Dalmatia]

It works mainly on organisms that are at least partially photosynthetic. Algaes of all kinds I can think of are one of those.

Most corals are photosynthetic, that's what we need light

 

[Eienna]

Most corals are photosynthetic, that's what we need light

Correct. However, a coral (thankfully) has the capacity to handle a temporary loss of light which would kill most algaes.

As far as using a blackout period to cure anything, cyano or algae, it needs to be coupled with fixing whatever caused the growth in the first place. In this case, it would be phosphate and/or nitrate feeding the algae, so it will be a recurring problem until those issues are solved.

 

[Mike J.]

After your 3 day blackout remove as much dead algae and detritus as possible; blow off your rocks, pick it out, remove gray dust around rocks and in dead spots. Dead algae = detritus = more algae.