Traveling! Lighting question

[tehpineapple]

I will be traveling to Portland, Oregon this weekend and I don't have anyone to feed my fish or turn the lights on/off.

I have 2 Clarkii clowns (fairly young), a watchmen goby and a diamond goby. For corals I have a fairly small Zoa colony (about 10-15 polyps) and a colt coral that I've had for about 3 weeks.

I'll be out of town for 3 days, leaving early the fist day and returning late on the 3rd day. I have 2 65w 50/50 10,000k/blue actinic over a 28 gallon tank.

I'm currently battling a slight green hair algae/red slime outbreak.

Should I leave the lights on or off? Maybe only one of the two bulbs? I'll be leaving the shades open so there will be some natural sunlight reaching the tank.

 

[Breadman03]

Leave them off. Your tank occupants should be fine with about 2.5 days of no feeding.

 

[tehpineapple]

Do you think this would help with the algae/slime issue or would it have to be completely blacked out to make a real dent?

 

[Dayson]

I would buy a cheap timer from Home Depot for less than $10.

 

[heathlindner25]

buy a timer....I don't see why they're not on one now anyways

 

[Ron Reefman]

How long have you been turning the lights on and off manually? Timers are so cheap at any hardware store!

 

[Breadman03]

I just wouldn't suggest getting one immediately before a trip. I had several that wouldn't turn on or off straight out of the box. One should be around to see if they are functioning properly.

 

[jayball]

If it were me I would take this opportunity to wrap a trash bag around the tank and do a full blackout.

I did it once when my tank was still fairly young and it knocked all the cyano out and weakened the GHA. Seeing as how you are not going to be home do set your skimmer to skim dry or risk it overflowing from the die-off.