Going dark on your reef and algae!

[revhtree Verified Admin]

So I thought this topic would make a great discussion for us!

I've never been one to "black out" my tank. I've tried it a couple of times for a couple different reasons but never stuck with it. To be honest I've not been a huge believer in it. Sorry and maybe that's changing!

That being said for the past couple months I have had an outbreak of a green algae, not hair, not slime or anything like that but a really dark green algae that doesn't cover corals but covers the rocks and sand. Tried a couple different algae "medications" to no avail.

It also blows right off with a turkey baster and blows into a ton of tiny particles but comes right back. Here is my thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/green-cyano-type-algae.527256/

Here is the algae under a microscope:

This photo was taken well over a month ago and it has only gotten a lot worse since! The algae is actually way more green than the photo shows.

Ok fast forward to last Sunday. I arrived home from the Fl Frag Swap, great show btw, and my in-line frag tank was totally covered in this algae and just being overrun. So I decided to try lights out! I also decided to buy a new cleanup crew but until they arrived I would try lights out.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I checked the frag tank and the tank was clear! Like totally clear. So I turned the lights back on schedule for the frag tank and turned the lights OFF for the main display to see what would happen.

Today, one day later, the main tank looks a ton better with the algae started to release on it's on.

Check out the video:


Then I noticed that the skimmer was producing some really nasty GREEN waste see the video!



So I am not sure how all this will end but it did get me to thinking that maybe there is more to this "lights out" on algae theory, or at least certain types of algae. Which leads me to my question for you.

Have you ever tried the "lights out" or "black out" method and did it work for you?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

PS. I am picky about a clean tank, clean glass and sand etc. so this has been killing me!! Hope this is the answer!

More green waste!

 

[shred5]

If your skimmer is picking it up the algae might be phyto and you may have higher nutrient allowing phytoplankton to grow.
I have seen it with those trying to fight dinos when they go to far the other way.


Reason blackouts do not work for allot of algae is they will leave spores for when conditions get better.

I have a tub in the basement I dump phyto into all the time and it ended up looking just like that. I grow lots of sponges and more desirable algae in there and it went away.
I still dump lots of phyto in there.

 

[SPR1968]

I tried it a while ago (dinoflagellates) and it worked for me and when the lights came back on there was no algae or anything. The tank looked spotless.

To be honest, at the time I remember thinking it was maybe worth doing a few times every year as part of general maintenance, and certainly for anyone with algae or similar issues.

These days I haven’t got algae or anything else to need to do it, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

I also love clean glass and sand so the tank shines.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

If your skimmer is picking it up the algae might be phyto and you may have higher nutrient allowing phytoplankton to grow.
I have seen it with those trying to fight dinos when they go to far the other way.


Reason blackouts do not work for allot of algae is they will leave spores for when conditions get better.

I have a tub in the basement I dump phyto into all the time and it ended up looking just like that. I grow lots of sponges and more desirable algae in there and it went away.
I still dump lots of phyto in there.

Very interesting! It is dark green like phyto!

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

I tried it a while ago (dinoflagellates) and it worked for me and when the lights came back on there was no algae or anything. The tank looked spotless.

To be honest, at the time I remember thinking it was maybe worth doing a few times every year as part of general maintenance, and certainly for anyone with algae or similar issues.

These days I haven’t got algae or anything else to need to do it, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

I also love clean glass and sand so the tank shines.

That's good to know!

 

[Brew12]

I think blackouts are a useful tool for a reefer to use but not a cure. With no other changes, the tank will likely go back to where it was before the blackout. But, if you do make some changes, I feel a blackout can be used to knock back the problematic algae to help your new efforts along.

 

[Fish_Sticks]

I tried it once two years ago.

One week blackout. Blankets. No peaking. Nothing.
Caused my fish to be stressed, act weird, and afraid of me when I turned back on the light. This continued for several days.
Caused poor polyp extension in my LPS and softies. I'm sure they were hungry for light.
Caused an unnoticeable amount of GHA to recede.
Whatever went away, came back with full force.

Two years later I only use this method for extreme algae outbreaks.
https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/what-if-i-told-you-ammonia-was-causing-your-algae-problems.602/

You can never eliminate algae, just control it. I don't really mind algae anymore, the fish love it and keep it in check.
Liquid additives and liquid algae cures are the quickest way to fix nothing... Patience is the best cure for algae control.

I've already beat this like a dead horse in multiple threads this week, so nothing new.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

I think blackouts are a useful tool for a reefer to use but not a cure. With no other changes, the tank will likely go back to where it was before the blackout. But, if you do make some changes, I feel a blackout can be used to knock back the problematic algae to help your new efforts along.

Great point! Yes changes must be made!

 

[SJ Blane]

I think blackouts are a useful tool for a reefer to use but not a cure. With no other changes, the tank will likely go back to where it was before the blackout. But, if you do make some changes, I feel a blackout can be used to knock back the problematic algae to help your new efforts along.

This is the key! Other approaches coupled with a blackout are more effective in the long-run. Assessing feeding, length of light cycle, and nutrient export will generally be more helpful in fighting the algae battle, imo.

 

[Greybeard]

Blackout, or simply reduced duration or intensity, is a tool that we should all have in our toolkit. It's not magic, and can't cure an underlying problem, but yes, certainly, it's a useful tool.

I've been struggling with a severe case of bubble algae for months. The 'right' fix for me was to increase light intensity and duration in my refugeum (Added a Zetlight ref light), allow chaeto and C. Mexicana to really get a good growth rate, while shortening the duration and intensity in my display. I've get an 8 bulb T5 light, 2x 4 bulb 'groups', one in more blue, the other more white. I had it blue on 10am to 10pm, white on 2pm to 8 pm. Slowly changed it to blue on 1pm to 4pm, and again from 6pm to 8pm, whites on from 4pm to 6pm. Both banks are never on at the same time. 5 hours shorter, 50% less intense during the shortened 'mid day'.

So... there's still some bubble algae in my tank, but you've gotta go looking for it. I'm slowing increasing duration again. I may never have both 4 bulb banks on at the same time again... my corals don't seem to mind that they're not 'all on'.

 

[Sailingeric]

I have been using the lights dimmed down and have seen my turf algae disappear. I turned it down by about 10% and it has made a world of difference.

 

[Sir Chris]

It looks similar to my culture bottles when I clean them aver harvest.
So have you ever dosed phyto to the system?

Usually a motile like tetraselmis looms like that.

 

[vlangel]

I was taught that light and nutrients were essential for algae to grow. Green algaes especially need light. I never had a problem (and I am old btw) until I got dinos in my seahorse tank about 2 weeks ago. They were predominantly in the sump which get light 24/7. I had also just done a large export of macro algaes which is probably what tipped the scales in the dinos favor.

To get the tank back into balance I manually removed as much of the dinos as possible. Most were floating on the water surface so a fine net worked very well. Whatever broke apart and went thru the return into the display were recaptured in the floss I put in the overflow. Then I turned off the light over the sump for 4 days, and hoped that the dinos were too weakened to compete with the macro algaes in the display. So far so good but its only been 4 days since the light were turned back on. Also I skipped 1 water change to give the nutrients a chance to rise a little.

 

[MTBake]

I've been thinking of going lights out for a day or two. Got a dino bloom going on. Added uv 5 days ago and feel like lights out could be the final blow to the dino population. Or at least put a nice dent in it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Green skim - that's a bit of algae. Rather than lights out, I try to determine the source.

Is tank at or near a window receiving excessive UV
Type of eater used as Tap seems to promote algae
Are lights on more than 14 hrs a day and at white spectrum dominant rather than blue?
Is ammonia level significant
Is there poor water flow allowing settlement of algae and algae spores
Is there no or a lack of Clean up crew.

 

[Jason Smothers]

For what it's worth, here's my thoughts on a complete blackout.

Four months ago I was having issues with cyano algae and gha. My bio load was relatively light with only 5 small fish in a 65 gallon. The tank is two years old and my nitrates were reading 1-2ppm with phosphates coming up near zero on my hanna.

I purchase a gfo reactor thinking I had phosphates locked up in the algae causing my problems. I would blow the rocks off daily with a baster and clean all my filter materials daily.

After a month of this I was getting no where fast. It wasn't getting worse but it wasn't getting better either. I decided to wrap my entire tank with brown builders paper and just let room light in thru the top.

I checked on my fish twice daily and continued to feed once a day. After 3 days I removed the paper and the tank was spotless. My fish looked and reacted fine. All of my sps, lps and softies looked fine. My pc rainbow lost a little color but that was it. I run 4 ati bulbs plus 3 kessils. I did ramp back up slowly over 5 days but other than that I made no other adjustments.

Now two months later everything look great and no recurring algae problems. I'm still not 100% certain what caused the issue. All I know is that 3 days of reduced light did the trick for me.

 

[Kscope]

I did a 6 day blackout for dinos. It worked great! Pristine! That was 2 years ago with no return. No fish issues or coral issues in a 54 corner mixed reef.

This does look like phyto though in your tank. May you'll have to do back to back blackouts. Like fleas...never just bomb once!

 

[make]

I did a 6 day blackout for dinos. It worked great! Pristine! That was 2 years ago with no return. No fish issues or coral issues in a 54 corner mixed reef.

YES I HAVE THAT TO.

 

[make]

CAN YOU HELP ME