No Lights for 3 Days Every Couple of Months Works Wonders! - Page 33

skippy2 · #**801** 08/31/2007, 11:43 AM

lol@Ryan. Personally, I would do a water change the first time you turn your lights out. Even if there is no bad algaes in the tank, you would be amazed on the water clarity. When I turned my lights out (only have done it once so far) I did a bigger than normal wc. My water was so crystal clear it looked like the fish were swimming in air. I plan on doing it again the end of Sept.

Ritten, I cleaned out my inbox so feel free to pm me again. I would like to hear what you think of my 'theory'.

waterfaller1 · #**802** 09/01/2007, 10:42 AM

Hi Peggy!

No problems with PH dropping during lights off? Sorry if this was posted in these pages, I am supposed to be cleaning the house for a party tomorrow..not reading the forums...

hicmndr · #**803** 09/01/2007, 08:55 PM

I just completed my first 3 days lights out experience on my 50 gallon tank (softies) that was covered with cyano. When the lights kicked on this morning there was about a third less cyano than before. I also noticed the water to be clearer.

Interestingly there is actually less cyano tonight (8 hours after lights on), than there was this morning. It looks like the cyano is continuing to dissolve off the sandbed even though the lights are back on. I'm guessing that the 3 days of no light weakened it to the point that it is detaching from the sand and being swept into the water column / skimmer.

I also tried a different experiment on my 300 gallon tank. It has some sps corals in it and has no ambient room light (in-wall basement tank), so I was nervous about trying the full 3 days of blackout. I tried running just the actinic's (no halides) for 2 days. It looks like it knocked the cyano back a little bit, but not nearly as significantly as the 3 days of lights out on the 50.

Josh125 · #**804** 09/04/2007, 07:47 PM

Well - I just flipped the switch to my lights, so day one starts in the morning. My 29 has been over run with a cyano type algae, not red but the brown kind. I pulled the rocks yesterday and did the scrub in anticipation of this lights out period.

At any rate, I already feed light and do WCs every two weeks. So, I'm looking at my friendly LFS's water.

I'll report back on the progress.

Josh125 · #**805** 09/06/2007, 09:37 AM

Day 1 - No real change I can tell. Fish still seem happy and fed well. Well give another update tonight. The plan is to do a big water change on Saturday when the actinics turn back on.

skippy2 · #**806** 09/06/2007, 01:43 PM

That's what I did Josh. Be sure to test in the meantime. Especially ph. I hope you are as pleasantly surprised as I was when your lights go back on. I only did a 2 day blackout, then did a bigger than normal wc. My water was so crystal clear it looked like my fish were swimming in air.

Josh125 · #**807** 09/06/2007, 06:59 PM

Day II has come and gone. Items to report:

1. The cyano/dinos are almost completely off of the rocks
2. They are still holding strong on the sand bed, one more day
3. Fish still look and act fine
4. Water is still terribly cloudy, as it was from the get go

I loaded up the phosban reactor with carbon to hopefully clear up the water. Over all, things seem to be going well.

SaltwaterDaddy · #**808** 09/07/2007, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Josh125
The plan is to do a big water change on Saturday when the actinics turn back on.

Do the water change BEFORE the lights come back on. I find it's less stressful on the livestock.

Josh125 · #**809** 09/07/2007, 07:56 PM

The 3 days are complete

The algae is completly gone from the rocks

The algae is still prevelant on the sand - although diminished and visibly thinned out.

The water started very cloudy, then cleared up, then cloudy again....although running carbon has cleared it back up. Not sure what's up with that.

I'll do a 50%ish water change in the morning before the actinics come back on.

This IS something I will implement going forward probably on a montly basis.

stevedola · #**810** 09/08/2007, 11:24 AM

monthly? dang thats aggresive. if you need to do it monthly I would suggest looking deeper in to the problem.

Josh125 · #**811** 09/08/2007, 01:51 PM

Why is that aggresive? The tank gets indirect light, so really isn't a problem. It's not bright and sunny over the reefs every single day.

Aquabucket · #**812** 09/08/2007, 02:20 PM

I'll be starting my 4th black-out since this thread started tomorrow.

After doing these blackouts regularly for almost 2 years now I can honestly say my tank looks and responds better to them more than it does after a water change (unlike many here I don't do the WCs during or right after my black-outs). I can't ignore my observations. This is the main reason that I choose to continue to due them even though my tank is very healthy. I do however still begin to get small rings of pesky diatoms along my sand where it meets my LR about 1-1/2 months to 2 months after each black-out.

Now that summer is almost over I should have some time soon to update the tally.

Until then ~ good luck with your black-outs everyone!

gummyworms · #**813** 09/08/2007, 03:05 PM

Thinking about doing this to my tank. I have a diamond goby and a kole tang in it and was wondering if an algae die off would cause a lack of food. I can probably keep my kole tang fed using seaweed (forget which brand it is, but he loves it). Should I worry about my goby at all? I'm guessing that he'll be fine but thought I should double check.

gummyworms · #**814** 09/08/2007, 03:06 PM

Thinking about doing this to my tank. I have a diamond goby and a kole tang in it and was wondering if an algae die off would cause a lack of food. I can probably keep my kole tang fed using seaweed (forget which brand it is, but he loves it). Should I worry about my goby at all? I'm guessing that he'll be fine but thought I should double check.

Edit: Sorry for the double-post.

dirtyclownfish · #**815** 09/10/2007, 04:48 AM

I have a wrasse that buries itself under the sand when it goes to bed. I was wondering that since the pH will be down, it will not know when to get up if I were to do this. I am also concerned about my tang feeding durring this period. Should there be a lot of ambient light durring this time? Just a few questions. Thanks for the great tread topic!

chris wright · #**816** 09/10/2007, 05:51 AM

There is generally enough ambient light in a room for the fish to still know that is day or night. I wouldn't black out the tank completely, there's no benefit to this I believe.
I have a wrasse also, and this fish always came out as normal, just not as active. I'd put in nori, or something to feed tangs etc on the front of the tank so that you can see them feed.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Chris

zeusfc · #**817** 09/10/2007, 09:58 AM

my ornate wrasse took great delight in pulling four legs off a nocturnal brittlestar who got confused, and stayed out all day during the blackout!

Aquabucket · #**818** 09/12/2007, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gummyworms
Thinking about doing this to my tank. I have a diamond goby and a kole tang in it and was wondering if an algae die off would cause a lack of food. I can probably keep my kole tang fed using seaweed (forget which brand it is, but he loves it). Should I worry about my goby at all? I'm guessing that he'll be fine but thought I should double check.

The goby should be fine.

Well my latest black-out was a success. Just turned the lights on a few hours ago after a 3 day black-out. My new clam is all opened up and my new purple goni is almost extended fully already. I was a bit worried about the goni but it handled the black-out just fine.

As usual tank clarity is exceptional and the tank looks great!

Justin James · #**819** 09/12/2007, 07:14 PM

I have what is believed to be dinoflagellates. I thought it was just cyano at first but soon realized I was dealing with something on a different level. My corals were starting to show signs of stress and my urchin was looking really bad. I am on my second day of lights out now and i'm going for the full 3. Even though my corals were weak going into this situation I have to risk it to be rid of this stuff. It's either watch my tank die slowly or take a shot and risk a couple corals and be rid of it. Today I removed the garbage bags that were wraping my tank to block all light and I syphoned out what looked like dead dinoflagellates. I also did a 20 % water change while doing so. I cleaned my skimmer as well to ensure that it picks up all the dieoff. There seemed to be a little of it kicking around that was still alive but there is still another day to go so hopefully this will take care of it. Wish me luck.

Zoom · #**820** 09/12/2007, 09:41 PM

DP

Zoom · #**821** 09/12/2007, 09:42 PM

Justin James

You can not kill dinoflagellates with three days with no lights .
Not even a week .
They will die out and the tank will look good but after a month they will come back. They always did in my tank let me know how you make out.

Justin James · #**822** 09/13/2007, 02:24 PM

Well how do you get rid of them?

Zoom · #**823** 09/13/2007, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Justin James
Well how do you get rid of them?

I don't know i try everything so far no good they go away for a month or so and they come back ....Like i said they may go away on there own i HOPE.

Aquabucket · #**824** 09/13/2007, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zoom
Justin James

You can not kill dinoflagellates with three days with no lights .
Not even a week .
They will die out and the tank will look good but after a month they will come back. They always did in my tank let me know how you make out.

Maybe this is your experience but I eliminated them with a series of black-outs and water changes. I had a small amount of them though.

Everybody's tank is different.

Zoom · #**825** 09/13/2007, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aquabucket
Maybe this is your experience but I eliminated them with a series of black-outs and water changes. I had a small amount of them though.

Everybody's tank is different.

You are correct that is my experience and many others here in RC had the same problem with dinos coming back.
You see i have a old tank with old fish and old live rock but all my equipment is the top of the line you see i can upgrade the equipment but noting else all the Live rock is encrusted with corals .
I can not go to long with out the lights three or four days is the max i start losing corals left and right i'm not saying lights out don't work it works and work good i just can not go to long with out the MH i have to many corals in the tank and they start to safer.