cycle lights on or off

[ducati1212]

Just read an article saying that lights should be off durring a cycle with live rock to reduce algae growth. Is this true because I have had my lights on for the last week thinking it will be good for any hitchikers hiding out in there.??

thanks

 

[Acroholic]

Personally, I left my lights off during cycling....to prevent any unwanted algea while the Nitrates were high........trust me.....preventing an algea bloom IMO is far more important than hitchhikers that may or may not need the light for the period of time it takes to cycle thru the trates.....

OT: Ducati.... .......what bike do you have...I ride an 04' CBR1000RR

 

[ducati1212]

I think I will turn my lights off the tank for a week or so. Or maybe turn them on much less.

Right now I have a Ducati S2R 800. Might upgrade to a 1000 next year. CBR 1000 is a super nice bike I think I would hurt myself on it I had an R6 for a while but I am into V-Twins now even though my duc is slow as crap.

 

[Johnbob]

Lights off during your tank cycling is a great thing to do as already stated, it will prevent a hair algae bloom. The only hitchhikers that you might lose due to no lights would be some macroalgae anyway. You can replace those with more desireable species anyhow.

 

[ducati1212]

I'm glad I found out now because I was starting to get lots of feather caulerpa which I hear is bad.

Can I throw some snails in there with the lights off.???

 

[R33f3r]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8030869#post8030869 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Johnbob
Lights off during your tank cycling is a great thing to do as already stated, it will prevent a hair algae bloom. The only hitchhikers that you might lose due to no lights would be some macroalgae anyway. You can replace those with more desireable species anyhow.

Ditto.

 

[MasiisaM22]

Lights off for me. So far it has always been a good start..

 

[Johnbob]

ducati, the feather Caulerpa is a good thing, especially if you are going to set up a refugium. You can harvest a good bit of it and place it in a ziplock bag in a lot of saltwater and expose that to moderate levels of light (indirect sunlight near a west facing window) and it will keep fine while your tank is cycling. If you want, you can do some water changes on the bag, but I kept some right at three weeks that way. You can throw in some snails if you like, but they might starve.