how to set lights to stop algae

[mclay]

have a rea sea E-260 with rea sea leds and new house has lot of windows . I have to leave lights off to keep algae from growing . do not have any rooms that don't get sun light.

 

[fishski13]

I would start by making sure all the green and red led channels are off as this is what algae thrives on. Secondly, try running the light for less time or for less time throughout the day.

Also the light its self is probably not causing the algae to grow. Its a combination of the light, flow, and nutrients in water. What are your nitrates and phosphate reading at.

 

[Jekyl]

How old of a tank? What are your parameters?

Welcome to R2R!

 

[AydenLincoln]

Using less white light and having them on for a shorter duration can help. But other things lead to algae like high nutrients. A good clean up crew can help keep algae in check too.

 

[mclay]

How old of a tank? What are your parameters?

Welcome to R2R!

1 year NO2 1 ppm NO3 35 ppm

 

[Jekyl]

1 year NO2 1 ppm NO3 35 ppm

Nitrate is a tad high. Especially if dealing with algae issues. What's your phosphate at? What size tank? How's your clean up crew?

 

[Jekyl]

Did some research on that tank. For clean up crew check out reefcleaners.org and get a cleaner package from them. Will help with diversity of what you currently have. That system should have a sump. Set up a refugium and grow some chaeto to help with nutrient levels. Dosing live phyto also helped my algae problems greatly. I started with the algae barn stuff.

 

[brandon429]

agreed with white light led spectrum drop, mine are zero whites in fact. all pop=less algae for sure/green microalgae glass cleaning work is much less under blues for sure. less incidence of coral bleaching too, although plenty of tanks still run the 10K look on LED's

less to no white is better for your goals for sure. I have lots of folks switch to blue vs white in tank cpr rescue threads, coral bleaching prevention threads, algae threads, I use it in my own setup on the ai prime/whites are off

the anecdotal pattern is powerful enough I do recommend it.

 

[Alicia Coronado]

I’m a newbie purchased a Red Sea 92 gallon tank. Now have 5 fish, 2 shrimp cleaner, 1 hermit crab, 1 large snail. Have 12 corals all small and starting out. They seem to be doing fine. The problem I have recently made a light change for corals and starting getting green algae. Parameters are all reading within the parameters. ( I did have salt water fish tanks (100 & 125 gallon) for 26 years so I know salt water fish. But my new hobby are the corals. Can someone help me don’t like the green algae or the light brown in my glass. I clean everyday and I water change every month. My lights were set at Blue at 50 and white lights a 15 and moon just the last hour. Change made when got more corals stated I should increase lights. Went to 65 blue and 20 white and last our lunar moon.
Can some please help or make suggestions?

 

[deome]

I’m a newbie purchased a Red Sea 92 gallon tank. Now have 5 fish, 2 shrimp cleaner, 1 hermit crab, 1 large snail. Have 12 corals all small and starting out. They seem to be doing fine. The problem I have recently made a light change for corals and starting getting green algae. Parameters are all reading within the parameters. ( I did have salt water fish tanks (100 & 125 gallon) for 26 years so I know salt water fish. But my new hobby are the corals. Can someone help me don’t like the green algae or the light brown in my glass. I clean everyday and I water change every month. My lights were set at Blue at 50 and white lights a 15 and moon just the last hour. Change made when got more corals stated I should increase lights. Went to 65 blue and 20 white and last our lunar moon.
Can some please help or make suggestions?

I had a really bad algae break this year. I tried everything, but it wasn't until I installed a GFO reactor and got my phosphates down to 0.1 ppm - 0.2 ppm that I was able to control it. Now, I let the remaining algae run wild in my refugium (where it belongs), but it has completely disappeared from display tanks; I think this is due to the new lighting schedule I adopted from a World Wide Corals video on Youtube, see below:


My best guess is that the algae stays out of my display tanks specifically because I switched to this recommended light schedule. If you don't want to watch the video, I'll summarize my schedule: 6 hours daylight + blue + UV, more or less 100%, then second 6 hours blue + UV (no daylight) at 90%. I do not use any Red or Green spectrum in this schedule. My refugium runs off a Neptune refugium light on its own schedule, on at night and off by day to balance PH swings.

Last thing I would recommend is to buy more snails, of all sizes. They're better at eating algae than any other critter in your tank.