New to coral question

dope100 · Jul 7, 2022

I have had my tank up for about a year and just added a cheap duncan wisker coral to my tank 32 biocube. Before this I would shut the light off periodically to reduce algae but since I added the coral I have left it on and am now starting to get it back. Can I no longer leave the light off for a day because the coral needs it or will they survive?

shakacuz · Jul 7, 2022

the light must be on for a certain amount of time daily since corals are mostly photosynthetic. if you are having algae issues, your best bet is the find the root of the issue, and fix that. are you overfeeding? do you have a clean up crew(invertebrates)? do you have adequate filtration? what are your water parameters?

\m/reefsnmetal\m/ · Jul 7, 2022

dope100 said:
I have had my tank up for about a year and just added a cheap duncan wisker coral to my tank 32 biocube. Before this I would shut the light off periodically to reduce algae but since I added the coral I have left it on and am now starting to get it back. Can I no longer leave the light off for a day because the coral needs it or will they survive?

The best thing to do would be buying a timer for the light and getting the tank on a schedule. The coral will not thrive with irregular lighting like that especially if you forget to turn it on for a while. You can alter the photo period to suit the coral and not overgrow algae.

dope100 · Jul 7, 2022

shakacuz said:
the light must be on for a certain amount of time daily since corals are mostly photosynthetic. if you are having algae issues, your best bet is the find the root of the issue, and fix that. are you overfeeding? do you have a clean up crew(invertebrates)? do you have adequate filtration? what are your water parameters?

The root of the issue is the light...