Will turning off my lights for algae issues cause an ammonia spike?

djryan2000

New member
I'm a couple months into no water changes because of the corona virus and don't see myself able to access RODI water anytime soon. In addition to the hair algae that I have I also am seeing cyano appear in the low flow areas of my tank. Since I currently have no corals I realized I should just turn off my lights since my fish respond to the ambient light in my bedroom for the day / night cycle. If I do this will it cause anything funky to happen? I'm worried of causing an ammonia spike or similar and not being able to do anything about it. Thanks


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Depending on how much hair algae you've got vs. how strong your biofilter is, then yes it dying off could be a problem. Algae will decay into ammonia, plus algae consumes ammonia. A full tank shot might give us a better idea whether or not this is a legitimate concern. Also, how long has your tank been setup?
 
Will turning off my lights for algae issues cause an ammonia spike?

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Here's a front shot and the shot of the cyano on the back.

I set up the tank in mid December

Should I just pluck all the algae I see out? Maybe go a day or two no lights to weaken it and then pluck it out?

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I'd probably manually remove what you can and go 3 day lights out to start. My biggest concern would be die-off from that chaeto if you left the lights off for too long. It looks like you have enough rock (with nitrifying bacteria) to process any ammonia but your tank is also very young.
 
I'd probably manually remove what you can and go 3 day lights out to start. My biggest concern would be die-off from that chaeto if you left the lights off for too long. It looks like you have enough rock (with nitrifying bacteria) to process any ammonia but your tank is also very young.


Thank you. The more I think about it the more I'm thinking of just buying salt and an RODI filter considering there's one for $60 on amazon.

I didn't even think of the chaeto dying - it's been so tiny until recently and it just dawned on me how much it's grown in the last ~14 days.


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Get the cheato to a lighted qt before using lights-out. It will otherwise shred and get into your pump. If you're not yet using ro/di, you might be getting phosphate (algae fuel) in your water. Frankly, I don't see a bad problem at all. New tank, start using ro/di, trust the cheato to absorb the phosphate. A 'bad algae problem' is one where 3" streamers are thick over the rockwork. See where you are in a week or so, and if it's starting to wave there are several things you can do. That's my opinion. Others are equally valid. I'm not sure, either that that red stuff on the rock is anything to do with cyano---could be another algae, and I've seen something like that precede coralline algae (the pink hard stuff), or appear in association with it.
 
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