How long do you keep your lights on?

by **newbie916** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 1:49 pm

I'm still having the green algae problem and I think it could be my lighting. I was leaving my blue lights on for 11 hrs and daylights on for 8 hrs per day. I changed it to 9 hrs on blue and 8 hrs for daylights to see if that will make a difference. I have four clams in my tank and several other corals that are photosynthetic, do you think that it will be enough light for them. I just don't want to reduce the lights to where my corals and clams will suffer. Oh yeah, they are T-5's and are 400 watts for 100 gallon tank.

by **dick_headers** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:21 pm

How old is your set up newbie?

by **newbie916** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:29 am

I bought it used about 5 months ago, but it was previously established for about 18 months. Do you think it's still cycling?

by **dick_headers** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 1:46 am

Have you ever checked phosphate, nitrate, alk/calc levels in the tank? I think it's not the light, unless you have more than 10 month old bulbs. Their spectrum start to decline after about 6-8 month.
8-10 or even 12 hours daylight shouldn't be the source of nuisance algae growth in a well established tank.
When you bought the tank was it well taken care of? Was it a good looking tank with lots of colors?
I'm pretty sure you're dealing with high nitrate levels and maybe short on water movement...

by **saltwaterpimp** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:22 am

ever change the bulbs ?

by **saltwaterpimp** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:23 am

the spectrum may be off.

by **puffedupseagull** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:39 am

All of the above. Bulb spectrum is better from 10000k and up. I also believe its not the lights unless they are older bulbs. My tank runs for approx 12 hours with no algea
My opinion is the phosphate levels. This is easily rectified by what you feed. Alot of flake foods and pellet foods contain it. Check the levels on the jar. The lesser the better. And maybe reduce the amount of feeding to a half and see how that helps.
Lack of water flow in areas can form stag net water causing algea blooms.

by **fihsboy** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:32 pm

speaking of that......would a 60 watt increase in lighting make your corals bleach? I went from pc to VHO and all my corals are starting to look a little lighter in color. any suggestions?

by **newbie916** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:39 pm

The tank wasn't doing really hot when I first bought the tank. The guy only did water changes once every 6 weeks. I've been battling nitrates since I bought the tank and all of my other levels read normal. My nitrates have been running at 10 ppm and I added some macro algae and Xenia to see if I could get them down to zero. However, my nitrates were as high as 40 ppm when I first set it up 5 months ago. That's when the algae bloom happened and I can't seem to get rid of it.
I do 15-20% water changes with RO water and Red Sea Salt every two weeks. I only feed my animals brine, mysis shrimp, krill, roto feast, and phyto feast. I could be over feeding, but my animals eat all of the food within 2 minutes.

Here is my livestock and what I feed them daily.
-3 cubes of brine or mysis shrimp daily.

-Every other day I feed my pink bubble tip about six large krill. I also give the large tangs some shredded krill. I also add 4 pieces of krill into the sand for the inverts.

- I put a capful of roto feast and phytofeast every three days or so.

Here are my animals:
1- 8" Hippo tang
1- 5" Yellow tang
1- 5" Sailfin
1- 3" Maroon Clown
1- 3" Bi color blenny
1- cleaner wrasse
1- True Perc clown
1- Chromie
1- Damsel
2- Crocea clams
2- Maxima clams
2- large toadstools
1- Finger leather
1- feather duster
1- X- large pink bubble tip about 12" diameter
2- Frogspawn with 8 heads each
3- 3 colonies of zoos
1- large rock of mushrooms
2-large rock of star polyps
3- Brain favia's
1- Large Brain coral
1- Acropora
3- Xenia
300- hermits
150- various snails
8- Emerald crabs
2- cleaner shrimp
1- fire shrimp
10- peppermint shrimp
1- Serpent Star
1- Sand Sifting star

I think that's it. How much should I feed everything and how often. I think that may be the problem.

Thanks,
newbie

by **newbie916** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:47 pm

I forgot to add
1- large purple flower pot coral
1- medium pink flower pot coral
1- Large purple finger leather.

I told you guys I went nuts. How much should I feed them and at what intervals. I think it could be overfeeding.
Thanks again
newbie

How long do you keep your lights on?

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