trying the "lights out" method...

[jbird69]

I have had a few species of algae popping up over the last couple months. Despite a prolific wad of chaeto in my refugium and nothing but ro/di water, I have started seeing GHA, Diatoms on the sand, a small patch of bubble algae and the dreaded cyanobacteria.

I have shut down all my lights, removed my carbon, shut down the skimmer and dosed with chemi-clean. I have also put a power head in the sump thats blasting out microbubbles for aeration. I am going to try to knock it all out in one blast. I started the process last night and I can already see most of the cyano and diatoms are gone.
Hopefully things will be happy and healthy when I complete the process.

Do you think I should keep light on my refugium during this Period? if so, 24hrs or 12 (12 is my normal schedule)?

 

[ludnix]

You should keep it on a 12 hour schedule if you're growing chaeto. There is no reason to turn that light off during this procedure as you want algae to grow in there, just not in the display tank.

Cyano and diatoms can disappear over night, the real issue when the lights come back on they can come back in full force after a day. When you're done with the chemi-clean I would turn on the skimmer again and run some carbon.

 

[jbird69]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15391397#post15391397 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ludnix
You should keep it on a 12 hour schedule if you're growing chaeto. There is no reason to turn that light off during this procedure as you want algae to grow in there, just not in the display tank.

Cyano and diatoms can disappear over night, the real issue when the lights come back on they can come back in full force after a day. When you're done with the chemi-clean I would turn on the skimmer again and run some carbon.

Yes, That is my plan. I will also do a 25% water change. I expect the skimmer to go nuts for a short while. I have used chemiclean with great results in the past.