Refugium light during a tank blackout?

[nim6us]

So.. dinos are back. I've been fighting with them for a while now. The last time I went nuclear, Dino X'd and got them all, or so I thought.

They've been gone for nearly 2 months, coralline algae has exploded, getting a good thin layer of green algae for fish to graze on, my corals have perked back up. I don't want to drop another nuke on all this progress. It's just a faint amount on the sand, so I'm hoping if I hit it with a 3 day blackout, and vacuum the sandbed that will knock it back without having to go chemical.

A lot of background just to ask, I have a little macroalgae reactor in the sump area, should I turn that light off as well during the tank blackout? Or are we really only looking to blackout the display and the cheato may actually help aid in starving out the dino?

 

[nim6us]

No thoughts?

 

[Mykawl]

Phosphate and nitrate levels?
How many fish and how much do you feed?
What type of light are you using for how long and what settings?

 

[Mykawl]

How many corals and do yo feed them? If so what and how much, some pictures always help. Full tank shot and close ups if possible with just whites on.

 

[Studio Deep Dive]

I'm having the same issue. Tons of nuisance algae! Thinking about doing a blackout. I have a 25gallon lagoon with;
2 clowns
1 Midas blenny
1 Cherub angel
1 flame hawkfish
6 corals - all frag size

Feeding:
1. Some combination of Reef Roids, Reef Chili and Mysis shrimp (every other day)
2. Flakes or pellets for fish (twice daily)


Kessel A360X - 12 hours with ramp up and down
4 24" T5's - on 10hrs


High flow - AI Nero 5 and a Gyre 1k

Carbon/GFO
Protein skimmer
Biopellet reactor
Chaeto

Dosing Calcium, Magnesium and Alkalinity as needed

 

[Idoc]

So.. dinos are back. I've been fighting with them for a while now. The last time I went nuclear, Dino X'd and got them all, or so I thought.

They've been gone for nearly 2 months, coralline algae has exploded, getting a good thin layer of green algae for fish to graze on, my corals have perked back up. I don't want to drop another nuke on all this progress. It's just a faint amount on the sand, so I'm hoping if I hit it with a 3 day blackout, and vacuum the sandbed that will knock it back without having to go chemical.

A lot of background just to ask, I have a little macroalgae reactor in the sump area, should I turn that light off as well during the tank blackout? Or are we really only looking to blackout the display and the cheato may actually help aid in starving out the dino?

If you are going to do a 3 day blackout, then I would turn everything off...including the fuge lights.

Do you know what type of dino you are dealing with? If staying only in the sand bed, then you may be dealing with Amphidinium dinos (small or large cell). They are difficult to eradicate...small cell amphidinium dinos do go into the water column but large cell not so much. I attempted a 5.5 day blackout on small cell amphidinium dinos and it wasn't long enough...they were in the water column when I took off the blackout cover! They were quickly repopulating! @taricha said he was able to kill them off with a 7 or 9 day complete blackout in a lab environment. But, if you can get them into the water column with a blackout, then a UV sterilizer hooked up to pull from the DT and return back to the DT should help knocking them out!