lighting hours

brent6969

AC Members
Nov 27, 2006
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i have just a hammer coral and a mushroom coral and i was wondering if i could have my lighting down to 8 hours becuase of bad red and brown algae. Will this cause my coral to die or waht?
 
it wont kill them at all
however, the algae wont mind it happening too much either. the best way to kill it is to lower you nutrient levels by doing such things as more frehwnt water changes, skimming more, feedingless, and making sure you are using good water.
 
it wont kill them at all
however, the algae wont mind it happening too much either. the best way to kill it is to lower you nutrient levels by doing such things as more frehwnt water changes, skimming more, feedingless, and making sure you are using good water.

k well i use RO water from the grocery store. I don't know if this is good or not. I don't have a skimmer becuase i have a ten gallon tank and i heard it wasn't necessary and could even take out key ellements in the water. I have started to feed my fish only once a day now because i was feeding them twice a day. I do water change every week and water top ups every couple days. I do have 96 W lights on my 10 gallon. Are you for sure that lessening this time will kill off some algae. THanks for the reply
 
not having a lot of light will eventualy kill of the algae, but 8 hours is still a perfectly acceptable amount of time for your corals and algae to grow.
what K is the light? is the tank near a windwo?
RO water from the grocery store still often has phosphates and even selecates in there as a preservative. you might want to not only get the water levels of your tank, but also the water you are using.
 
i have no idea waht k it is all i know is that it is 96 W. And its like 15 feet from a window that doesn't shine much light out of. DO you think my mushroom will come back afer being strunk up for a week to 1/10 the size.
 
mushrooms will probably make a full recover. K is the color spectrum of the bulb.
why do you ask about the mushrooms? did you turn the lights off for a while?
 
no i ask becuase my hydrometer was way off and my mushrooms just slowly shrivelled up and havn't come out forever. I"m so frustrated. I can't wait till this all passes. Thanks alot
 
This "red algae" is the slimey cyano bacteria, right? If so, what's your water flow like? I ask becuase getting rid of cyano can be as easy as adding a few powerheads.

And, the "brown" algae is diatoms, right? If so that's very common in new setups and will go awya after a few months of the tank being up.
 
This "red algae" is the slimey cyano bacteria, right? If so, what's your water flow like? I ask becuase getting rid of cyano can be as easy as adding a few powerheads.

And, the "brown" algae is diatoms, right? If so that's very common in new setups and will go awya after a few months of the tank being up.

RIght now i have two rio 90's which put out 160gph combined. SO doing the math i get 16X turnover rate which is good i think.
The brown algae comes and goes, but when it comes back it comes full force. Its extremely annoying becuase it looks really bad. ANd i've heard just to leave it on the glsas cause if you wipe it off it just creates more nitrates which results in more algae.
 
Do you have a Clean-up crew, such as snails and hermits? If not, you need to get some. They do a great job on cleaning the substrate and glass. I got a large clean-up crew for my 55-gal and they devoured my algae problem.
 
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