3 day lights out for algae

[tmz]

It is an oxidant and should not be used in the tnak ,IMO. Works fine as a bath on some corals and rock.
It doesn't hurt the zoanthidae I've treated .They may close up and stay that way for a few hours ;most open right back up. It seems to perk them up . It will neatively affect pods , serpernt stars , asternin and such as well as some potential pests like "zoa pox".

 

[hampsterblade]

It is an oxidant and should not be used in the tnak ,IMO. Works fine as a bath on some corals and rock.
It doesn't hurt the zoanthidae I've treated .They may close up and stay that way for a few hours ;most open right back up. It seems to perk them up . It will neatively affect pods , serpernt stars , asternin and such as well as some potential pests like "zoa pox".

Thanks. I'm going to run 4 hours of actinic tonight then 8 hours tomorrow and white light back on in two days. I'll give a large water change and scrub the rocks down. Bathe the zoas as well

 

[hampsterblade]

New lights came in yesterday. The purple plus is not near as impressive as I thought it would be. The actinic bulbs are actually a bit whiter than my odyssea bulbs were. Today I scrubbed all the rocks and did a 30 gallon water change. I took the zoomed LEDs off the chaeto and put a 120W halo flood light. The chaeto has almost doubled in size in 3 days and phosphates are almost 0. Hard to say since API kits are terrible at low range. Here's to hoping this is the end of the bad algae. Will update in a few days with some picture.

 

[hampsterblade]

3 days after lights out and things are looking good. The corals are looking much better. I see very little algae except for the massive growth in my sump and my chaeto is thriving. Here are some pictures.

 

[wcarterh]

Something to keep in mind, you might be seeing 0.25 phosphates on the test kit, but it a false low (you have cyano and algae blooms). The algae is uptaking the phosphates faster than you can test them.

 

[hampsterblade]

Yes. I am aware that algae consumes phosphates. Thats why I made getting the chaeto growing first priority. I hope to get things going without using GFO.

I also feel I may have been overfeeding. I've cut my feeding in half and reduced it to every other day instead of every day.

 

[wcarterh]

Possible overfeeding with coral. FWIW, I've ran chaeto (fish and corals) and it took gfo to bring mine down to acceptable levels (0.03). From what I've seen, normally takes gfo or an ATS. Though it never hurts, and I'm curious to see the differences.

 

[mluntz]

I did a 3 day lights out and it iseemed to help a lot, although I believe the real culprit was my rocks leaching PO4. Over time the tank became more stable and the leaching issue ceased. I do run GFO and carbon reactors 24/7 and the problem seems to be under control.

Make sure you rinse your food and do not overfeed.

 

[GilliganReef]

3 days lights out is not going to solve your issue. I battled cyano and GHA for months. I did the 3 days out, once for three months before. Then I just went out spent the money on GFO reactor. Trust me if you can't get your Phos down, it will come back, and keep coming back. Just add the correct amount for you size tank of GFO in reactor. Do 25% water changes every week until you start seeing the algae declining. Also siphon out as much GHA as you can before every water change. I have been doing this for 2 months and I am finally winning this battle. My tank looks 100% better. Get a GFO reactor.