Increasing Daylight in the room and algae?

[jjencek]

I started to have slime-like algae showing up on the side of rocks near the bottom. It is only in one part of the tank. I had T5s on for 12 hours per day and just I lowered them to 10 hours. That might help.

But then I noticed something when the tank lights were off in the morning. The problem area gets a lot of natural light (not direct sunlight) from my room which of course has been increasing as part of the year.

Question: Could that be the problem? Should I put some shade in that area?

 

[mcgyvr]

Could be.. anything is possible..

 

[scooter31707]

Could be.. anything is possible..

I agree. Do you have good flow in that area?

 

[gone fishin]

I set up my first tank in the early summer it had very little direct or indirect sunlight. Come fall when the leaves fell that was a different story and I ended up with some algae. IMO it is possible.

I ended up keeping a curtain closed and that seemed to solve my problem.

 

[jjencek]

I agree. Do you have good flow in that area?

My flow in that area seems to be the same as areas without the problem. I closed the curtains and will see if anything changes. After posting this note, by reading other post, I figured out it was Cyano starting. So here is my plan:

closed the curtain
lowered light schedule from 12 to 10 hours
scrub it and syphon
water change - due anyway

And observe ....

 

[Sk8r]

Yes. It's real common as seasons advance: light moves across the wall, strays into your tank, and bingo, lotta algae and cyano. The good part is---it's showing you you've got some excess of phosphate and some stuff the cyano is feeding on: you may need to remediate those as well as drawing the drape.
Another cause of problems is a dying bulb, but that's more common with metal halide lighting.