Tank Blackouts To Combat Algae: Have you been successful?

[Jilly92]

Hey let's talk about "blacking out" your reef aquarium to combat algae how about it! Just recently I started to get some different type of green film on my sand and rock and I don't want to wait until it's too late and taking over but I want to take action now. Of course you have to address the root of the issue, handle that and then you can conquer the algae issues.....until the next time at least!

Blacking out your tank is not turning on your lights or allowing any light to penetrate the water column for a period of time. (my definition)

For me I have ordered a new clean up crew, algae eating fish and sand stirring fish. I am also making sure my top off water is up to par and changing out some water. But I am going to implement a 3 day black out to kick start the fight!

So let me ask you a few things.


1. How many of you have had success with tank blackouts and was it short or long lived?

2. Do you feed your fish during a tank blackout and if so what does that look like?

3. Do you think a regularly scheduled black out is good for an aquarium?


image via @mello87

Success in killing algae and corals. I believe the process is alot more delicate than one would think.

 

[KingPiscean]

Hey let's talk about "blacking out" your reef aquarium to combat algae how about it! Just recently I started to get some different type of green film on my sand and rock and I don't want to wait until it's too late and taking over but I want to take action now. Of course you have to address the root of the issue, handle that and then you can conquer the algae issues.....until the next time at least!

Blacking out your tank is not turning on your lights or allowing any light to penetrate the water column for a period of time. (my definition)

For me I have ordered a new clean up crew, algae eating fish and sand stirring fish. I am also making sure my top off water is up to par and changing out some water. But I am going to implement a 3 day black out to kick start the fight!

So let me ask you a few things.


1. How many of you have had success with tank blackouts and was it short or long lived?

2. Do you feed your fish during a tank blackout and if so what does that look like?

3. Do you think a regularly scheduled black out is good for an aquarium?


image via @mello87

I had a real bad dino and hair algae problem and did a 3 day blackout which helped knock it back a bit. I fed 1 time and my fish were fine but My SPS corals took a hit and one bleached so I won’t ever go that route again. I ended up getting a new tank anyway but if I run into nuisance algae/dino/cyano again I’ll just reduce my photoperiod and light strength instead. I would also dose more competitive bacteria’s to outcompete the bad stuff. Good luck

 

[Smoke-Town]

Just finished reading these 4 pages and I still don't know if I should try it. I have a fast growing sps tank with even faster growing gha outbreak. Neglect from the summer and an unseen blown out uv bulb and snails blocking my primary drain to rollermat got me there.

So obviously I need to do a few 60-80% water changes after the blackout to remove all the nutrients from the dead algae. My concern is rtn on my sps and polyp baulout of lps. Is this happening to people because they go back to full lighting on day 1? Or is the blackout itself messing with them?

Has anyone done this with success on a mature sps tank?

Really don't have the extra coin atm for an algae scrubber.
But I do like what I've heard of them... for those who have installed a scrubber for this... did it make the gha in the display receed by itself or did you have to manually remove it all and the scrubber just prevented its return? If so... how long did it take and what scrubber and what pump/flow rate and what algae are you growing inside it?

It is extremely hard to scrub yhe rocks because of all the branching sps and the nsa rock structures... I smash branches every time I go in there.

And yes to those who say its not a solution... i fixed my issues... i rebuilt an entire new drain line to the rollermat. Repaired the rollermat. Swapped the uv bulb on one of the returns and with my new properly working drain was able to increase the flow rate significantly. I also reduced daily feeding, i bought a sea hare (useless but cool), i removed all whites greens and reds from my lighting profile while reducing the schedule from 12 to 7 hours. Oh I also dose kz coral snow plus every other day to capture nutrients from algae die off and kz cyano clean bacteria from nutrient competition.

 

[Smoke-Town]

Oh. Also for those with success... were you using carbon, gfo, aluminum oxide Lanthinum chloride or any other chemicals or treatments during your Hair Algae blackout? Please no dino responders... I also battled those for a year and it's not the same conversation.. unles you are a dino responders answering my question about the sps bleaching after the blackout. Asking about gha only as far as success or not from the blackout

 

[PBar]

Hello,
I did a couple of times blackout in my tanks (3 days).
I believe it is quite useful under the concept of “phase shifting”.
Meaning that, you will try to revert something that happened bad which gave opportunity for the algae to get advantage.

In my cases, I removed first all cyano or diatoms (manually or blowing up the rock as much as possible)
I put inside the tank a powerfilter to help remove the floating parts.

After two days of blackout I did again in order to remove any potential remaining parts (normally easier as well).

Regarding the acros, I’ve never spot any single stress or change.
Yet, to be clear, the tank in all cases was not under stress or huge outbreak. I did all times after some first signs of algae.

Last remarks:
-I don’t have soft corals, just full acro. Maybe carbon is a good idea.
-I usually turn the light for a few minutes just to feed the fishes.
-Attention to alk which will increase if you keep the same dosage

best of luck!

 

[JPM San Diego]

I have never tried blacking out the entire tank. I did make a black plastic box which sat inside my aquarium. I put my live rock inside. There was a small powerhead on top to maintain flow. It took several weeks, but eventually the rocks were cleared of algae. Recently my phosphates dropped to zero in one tank. I turned off the lights to my refugium altogether. I was ok with sacrificing the chaetomorpha as the tank was going to be broken down in the near future. The phosphates slowly drifted up. The chaetomorpha looked perfectly fine for about 10 days. Plans changed and the light was turned back on. I am not convinced that blacking out a tank for a few days will have any significant effect on algae.

 

[Smoke-Town]

Will a blackout kill algae spores also? Like a 2 week blackout in a garbage can maintaining clean saltwater and heat?

 

[Paul B]

My tank now has a big problem with encrusting, photosynthetic sponge. It is covering my corals and exudes toxins in the water when I kill or cut it.

From killing and cutting the sponge the dying sponge is creating algae. It started growing on the glass and on all my very old gorgonians, some 15 years old so I don't want to lose them.

I use NSW which fuels the sponge because here it is loaded with silica.

I am mixing up 125 gallons of ASW. While I am doing that I am going to cut off all my corals from the rock. None of them are on those cement plugs but growing on the rock itself. I will remove all the sponge encrusted rock and put it in vats outside where it is 20 degrees and dark. I will leave it there for a month.

The rest of the rock and fish will stay in the tank with new ASW (which is very stressful and may crash the 51 year old tank) It doesn't have silicates in it so I don't think any remaining sponge will thrive.

After the month in the cold and dark I will put the rest of the rock back in in the hope that it is dead.

If it is, I will drain the tank and again fill the tank with NSW. This is the plan anyway.

The light blue/purple stuff under the gorgonian that looks like montipora is sponge.

 

[Fish Styx]

I've had mixed results with it in the past, and admittedly, habe not done it recently. Mamy years ago (circa 2012), I was battling a particularly nasty outbreak of Bryopsis. Back in those days, it was much akin to the herpes of invasive algae. Once you had it, you had it. Nothing short of PBITAWA would help. In fact, at the time, the only thing that was showing any sign of success with getting rid of it was dosing with tech M and raising mag levels. That coupled with a black out for for about 7 days ultimately did the trick, but not without significant losses.

All that being said:

1) moderate length
2) I dropped to a reduced feeding schedule of 1x a day
3) I'm not sure, really. Depending on frequency and duration, it could be like simulating heavy tropical storms that last for a few days. Maybe not, though. I'm just spitballing here.