Lights out

[Marchillo]

I feel this is an obvious answer but I currently have no corals in my big tank - just fish, snails, shrimp, live rock, and sand. I had an auto feeder mishap which turned my beautiful tank into a Cyano/ GHA mess (not terrible actually but want to stop it). Went lights out for 3 days two weeks ago. Cyano came back similar and GHA got a bit worse. I added some gfo and also noticed my cheato was dying. Not sure why cause I have a coralife fuge light there with bulbs that are only 3 months old. Added some more cheato.

Anyways decided to go lights out again. I'm going on day 4. I'm assuming there is no harm going a few more days lights out? The fish don't care right? And it seems the rest of my creepy crawlers are more active with lights out.

What harm can come from lights out for too long? The fuge light still does its 12 hour nightly shift.

Thanks - Steve

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Your fish will be fine with lights out but Cyano will be with you until it's run its cycle no matter what you do. What I did was once a week I would take a plastic fork and roll up the Cyano mat off of the sand and then do a 20% water change. I did this for 5 or 6 weeks and then all of a sudden it was gone. I never did lights out, didn't run GFO and I didn't change any of the flow. I also pull any GHA or other algae that is growing in my sump. My Chaeto grows wonderfully with the way I'm doing this.

I leave my lights on 24/7 on my sump and this keeps all of my algae in the sump, I don't have any growing in my DT.

 

[njreefguy]

The cheato was probably dying because the hair algae and cyano was out competing it. Like the above post said just keep plugging along. pull the HA when you see it and keep sucking up the cyano.

 

[gone fishin]

Personally I would not go to long on the lights out. Unless the fish are nocturnal by nature, they will go into hiding/sleep mode when the lights are out. I have heard about prolonged lights out and when they come back on a fish or two is missing, just rumor nothing solid to point to. Good luck

 

[Marchillo]

Great Thx for the responses. I'll try those things.