lights out period

[Hyprviperx]

i have been recently having an algae outbreak, not bad, but i want to get a handle on it early. i had heard of several people doing lights out period once a month to slow growth of algae. my question is; is it ok for me to do a lights out period and if so how long? I have a reef tank w/ fish, inverts, a chalice, a rose BTA, an acro milli, acans, fungia plate, and a bunch of softies (mushroms/zoas). thanks for the help everyone

 

[soccerbag]

What type of algae are you experiencing? Cyano? There are a lot of folks that do a lights out once per month as you stated above. This does not seem to have any negative effect on fish or corals. Depending on what type of algae you are seeing, the lights out period may not be necessary as there may be other factors involved.

 

[jiffy]

what kind of CuC do you have?

 

[Hyprviperx]

its currently green algae that im dealing with, film like not hair algae

my CUC is comprised of zebra hermits, fancy red leg hermits, blue leg hermits, a tiger serpent star, 2 tiger conchs, the pistol shrimp, a coral banded shrimp

 

[skinz78]

I'm wondering if people do the 3 day lights out and they have clams if the clams do OK with it?

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Lights out is generally useless. The algae (sounds like cyano) usually is not affected or just comes back soon. I'd suggest getting at the root cause of the problem be it phosphates or nitrates too high etc, maybe source water TDS levels too high. Make sure you're not over feeding. Test your Phos, Nitrate. Make sure your using RO/DI for your top off. It wouldn't hurt to add some turbo, astrea, or trochus snails to your cuc. If the film can be siphoned off the rocks you can just keep manually siphoning it off with a small diameter hose like airline hose and as long as everything else is good that should take care of it.

 

[swannyson7]

I'm wondering if people do the 3 day lights out and they have clams if the clams do OK with it?

I've done a 72 hr lights out a while back when I had some dinos (which didn't work, but Lee's H2O2 did!) and my clams were fine afterwards

 

[jiffy]

since ur in FL I'd order from www.reefcleaners.org John is a great guy, get some dwarf ciriths they should help out.

 

[Troylee]

Couldn't agree more great advice!!!!

Lights out is generally useless. The algae (sounds like cyano) usually is not affected or just comes back soon. I'd suggest getting at the root cause of the problem be it phosphates or nitrates too high etc, maybe source water TDS levels too high. Make sure you're not over feeding. Test your Phos, Nitrate. Make sure your using RO/DI for your top off. It wouldn't hurt to add some turbo, astrea, or trochus snails to your cuc. If the film can be siphoned off the rocks you can just keep manually siphoning it off with a small diameter hose like airline hose and as long as everything else is good that should take care of it.

 

[Hyprviperx]

I thought cyanobacteria was red slime algae. What I have is green film. I do you have turbo snails and astrea snails I forgot to mention them. It probably is over feeding now that you say that. I was target feeding some of my new corals and they were in wrong areas of flow so I think that too much was getting passed around the tank I do believe that I have fix that problem now as I bought a more specific coral feed yesterday

 

[Dave3112]

I'm wondering if people do the 3 day lights out and they have clams if the clams do OK with it?

Clams are fine in my tank

and YES the 3 day lights out DOES WORK for cyano!!!!!