Lights for clean up crew?

[Slystone]

Clean up crew set to arrive this week. Snails and shrimp. Without any fish or coral in the tank, how long do I keep my lights on during the day?

 

[cloak]

Six hours maybe?

 

[longdangler]

you don't actually have to run them at all, but you could start with 4-6 hours and work your way up if you would like. More of a personal preference, plus getting the tank accustomed to the lights so you don't have a huge algae out break

 

[ebacon]

You shouldn't need lights at all. As far as your clean up crew, they generally prefer darkness anyway. That said make sure you are using filtered water, I prefer rodi. Because if yr are using straight tap water you most likely will get an nuisance algae outbreak when you turn the lights on. Some folks can get away with tap water and even well water. 99.9% can not

 

[ebacon]

I also just noticed that this is a new setup and you are new to rc. I would suggest getting a piece of raw uncooked shrimp and chucking it in then waiting two weeks to make sure the tank has finished the initial cycle. Since it is now empty lets assume it has had almost no bio load. The moment you put an ammonia producing organism in there it will cycle again.

 

[cloak]

Not running the lights from the start is just prolonging the inevitable IMO, algae growth. Also, if there are no predators in the tank, the CUC is not going to care about it being night or day out. There going to be searching for food either way.

 

[Slystone]

I started with cured live rock, live sand and a dead shrimp so I cycled in two weeks. Thanks all. Will put light on for about six hrs. So the clean up crew has algae to eat

 

[biggles]

Since you're all cycled i agree you might as well get things rolling with the lighting, 6 hours is plenty. The CUC are ninjas and operate in the darkness and shadows.............