Before/After Lights Out 3 Days (for red slime and hair)

[reptileguy112]

I am turning off the lights for 3 days to see how significantly it affects my tank with massive amounts of red slime and some green hair algae.
I will put up a pic of the before in 40 or so minutes and the after in 3 days. Lets hope this kills some algae!

 

[mike007]

Most of these nuisance algae's are caused by excess nutrients . Lights out may help temporary but it will come back if you don't reduce nutrient level. Most common cause is from overfeeding. You have to export more nutrients than what's going into tank through protein shimming, macro algae etc. If all else fails use Chemiclean it works great.

 

[reptileguy112]

mike007, I know it is because my nitrates are a little high, I just want to see the effects on the algae of the lights being out. I am vodka dosing while I look for a skimmer.

 

[reptileguy112]

Also I will take a look at chemiclean

 

[reptileguy112]

I am not sure why the picture is not coming through but I will get it up asap.

 

[Mr tooheys]

Not a good idea to vodka dose without a good skimmer

 

[reptileguy112]

I have a diy skimmer while I am looking for a regular skimmer. This is the before pic.

 

[Mr tooheys]

Yeah right,,,doesn't look to good,,,how long has the tank been running for????because I have a 150g tank and it's taken 18 months to come good

 

[reptileguy112]

Its been going for about 5 months I think. It only has one small colony of zoaS, cleaners, flame scallop, domino diamo, and a 12" snowflake.

 

[saltyphish]

Lights out for me completely cleared the cyano sand never looked so clean, and then it all came back within 3-4 days. I ended up using chemiclean and no more cyano.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Umm, whats your water flow?? I don't see any powerheads in there. ???

 

[reptileguy112]

I got a cheap powerhead and the cord cracks on started smoking so I and using 2 HOBs right now. My tank sure needs some stuff, its a work in progress.

 

[Reefing Madness]

probably found the reason you have cyano. No flow. HOB Filters do not create any kind of good flow in a SW tank.

 

[reptileguy112]

what flow would you recommend for a 40g breeder? One big powerhead or several small?

 

[Reefing Madness]

Couple of smaller ones, starting at 600gph, so maybe 2 300gph powerheads to start with.

 

[reptileguy112]

Before Lights Out-

After 3 Days-

There has not been much if any improvement. The only difference is a little more rock.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Gotta wave all that crap off the rocks, and siphon it out. Even with the Lights out theory, what do you have on the tank that will remove it from the system once its detached?

 

[H2O]

Like others pointed out u need good flow get a mp10 so u can control it and when doing water change try to get as much of it out with a hose make sure to use RODI water do some big water changes and u of to a good start

 

[reptileguy112]

I do use DI water, I has scraped it all off several times it grows back within 8 or 9 hours. I an going to order a powerhead and maybe some chemiclean is its cheap online because everything is the hobby is getting ridiculously expensive.

 

[reptileguy112]

What is the difference between chemipure and chemiclean?