How long have you/can you go lights out??

[HHIreefer843]

Hey yall,
well just like it says, how long should i or can i go lights out? i am dealing with the beginning stages of of Dinoflagellates and want to starve them of the lights.
thanks in advance
Happy Reefing!

 

[whis169]

3 days once a month worked for me.

 

[HHIreefer843]

Thanks for the quick reply! How many months did you do it? Did you use any other practices

 

[HHIreefer843]

anyone else??

 

[Metal Man 1221]

running 100% of your water through filter floss will help with dinos. Did for me

 

[dixiedog]

I've done three days with no problem, even wrapped the tank in dark towels to keep out the ambient light.

I was trying to eliminate cyano, but it didn't work.

 

[kawicivic]

lights out is good for a temporary fix of cyano - I am currently on day 2 of a 3 day lights out routine. I've done it before buts its merely a bandaid. I have never tried lights out for dinos. Good luck. I wouldn't worry about 3 days or less.

 

[dirtyBit]

I tried to do 3 days once but my anemone jumped off its perch by day 2 and I had to stop.

 

[HHIreefer843]

thanks guys. I did it for 84 hours and it was totally fine....kind of weird my corals look brighter now then they did before. maybe its just becasue i havent seem them in a while hahaha. Oh and the 98% dino have gone away i still will get an occasional bubble here or there

 

[corsi]

Yeah I think no more than three days. I just chopped up a sps colony to free up some room and had to keep the frags in my sump and they really lost color after day 4.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I've done 72 hours to rid the tank of algae and the corals were fine, even the algae made it through the tough time...

 

[hogfish]

i have a friend that goes lights out three days once a month and has done so for the life of his aquarium. He heavily feeds his corals so he does lights out for algae control and it has been very successful for him.

 

[Luwanie]

As a random side note: I had ballasts go out on my lights and my coral went about 4 days without light. When I got the lights working again, everything seemed to have multiplied-- the acans all had some new tiny heads forming and zoas and shrooms started multiplying like crazy after that. The acans were most noticeable, as a couple frags were growing VERY slowly and were kicked into overdrive after lights-out. Very strange, but I duplicated it with another tank and my coral did the same thing.

 

[HHIreefer843]

Kind of dug this up a little bit but i was out of town and my surge protector that has my lights on got unplugged and i was without light for a little over 4 days...corals areREALLY pale, im hoping they will regain color soon