Lights Out?

[brians_224]

Thanks for your time.

I've been battling a nasty case of algae since it seems like for ever - not sure what it is. I'm going out of town for 10 days. I've been considering leaving the lights out while I'm away to try to starve it out.

Tank Inhabitants:
Two Clowns
YWG
Shrimp - sexy, pep, fire, pistol
RBTAs
Frog Spawn
Maxima clam
Xenia
Frag of Bali Green Slimer

The MH lights are typically on for 8 hours.

Thoughts?

[fareforce]

Bad idea.. You will most likely kill off a lot of your livestock by doing that. You could cut back on the time.

[Blown 346]

I agree, the least amount of time to have the tank lights on for is 8 hours and the most 12. By having lights out for that time the corals/clam you have will be dead when you get back.

I would clean the tank very well before you leave, so when you get back it might be where it was before you cleaned it.

[brians_224]

ok - so I won't go lights out. :)
Thanks.

[drummereef]

Not light and corals for 10 days isn't a good combo. I'd get to the source of the problem and treat it there. Can you describe your system a little more to us? What kind of filtration do you use? Do you use RO/DI water?

[brians_224]

Thanks...
I use ro/di
I feed very - lightly 2 x week
I have a refugium with chaeto lit 24x7
I've run phos ban
Flow - ~450 through sump, 750 gph using powerheads. I just added a tunze 6025.

Its not hair algae. Is some sort of gooey stuff the grows on the rocks. I'm able to blow it off in sheets. Its not cyano.
Could it be some sort of bacteria and not algae?

[Blown 346]

What color is the algae? It sounds like cyano form what you describe as it comes off in sheets. Cyano can come in red, black,green, dark purple.