Lighting Programming Help

[Stingray122]

I have a Maxspec Razor 180W 16000k over a 40 gallon breeder. The light is mounted on the legs it comes with. I am looking for someone to help me make a new program. I am getting some brown algae growth in the aquarium currently (diatoms?, maybe cyano? I have some brown cyano on the sand bed), parameters are within reason. The phosphates are a little higher, I have been slowly lowering them with the use of GFO and cutting back my feedings for about a month now, but still this algae returns. I believe that I perhaps have too long of a white photoperiod.

Background Tank Info:
40 Breeder
Trigger Systems 30in Sump
Reef Octopus 110INT
H160 Tuna Flora Refugium Light growing Chaeto
About 2300 G/hr worth of flow
15 gallon water change every week, along with filter socks about every 4 days.
Bioload: Two clownfish, one torch coral, and one acropora.

Programming as of now:
9:00 0W 0B
9:30 0W 1B
12:00 10W 25B
17:00 30W 45B
20:30 0W 0B

I believe that I should perhaps just use the blues for a majority of the day with a 5 hour white period but am looking for some guidance on what the actual program should be. I just am so surprised that my chaeto barely grows and yet all this crap shows up in the tank even with a powerful refugium light... I have a lot more corals in my quarantine tank right now so I just want to get this tank looking and performing great when they're ready to be moved. Additional information available upon request if you need it! Thanks everyone!


EDIT: Forgot two important pieces, RODI water is exclusively used, and the tank has been up and running since March, I've been taking it really really slow. I'm new to reef tanks.

 

[Ranjib]

bump

 

[Ron Reefman]

The light cycle is such a small part of the algae issue I wouldn't even worry about it. But here are 2 ideas:
1) The Zooxanthellae inside your coral only does photosynthesis for 5 to 8 hours. So make that the length of time you run intense lighting (especially white).
2) Most nuisance algae uses red spectrum (think refugium grow lights) and all corals use way, way more blue than any other spectrum. In fact you could turn the white lights off entirely and just run the blues for weeks. The corals will still polyp out and grow, but the algae will fade away. Lots of reefers do a 3 days of lights out to get a jump on nuisance algae. But that can be a bit hard on the corals. Running just the blues has worked perfectly for me the couple of times I've done it.

Now, that said, you need to get control over nitrates, phosphates and feeding. And measuring phosphates can be pretty tricky. You can read zero phosphates but the algae still grows, why? Because the algae (both nuisance and zooxanthellae inside the coral) uptake the phosphate so quickly that the water has virtually none to be measured. That's part of why refugiums have become so popular and proven to keep algae under control. Grow algae in the refugium and it used the nitrates and phosphates that the nuisance algae in the DT just don't get enough to grow.