tank cycling, how long to keep lights on?

[motlot77]

my tank is cycling right now and am wondering how long to keep the lights on for?

it's starting to grow the brown algae over everything and would like to limit that, but also don't want to hurt any living things in there that may depend on the light. i picked up quite a few tiny little anenomes that i would like to keep.

right now i'm leaving them on for about 9 hrs. too long?

[TekCat]

4 hours is plenty

[motlot77]

wow, i guess i'll cut back.

[Sk8r]

Look at it this way: one of the hardest things to do is stabilize your temperature. I ran mine full cycle [mh--8 hrs after burn-in] and futzed with the temp and the flow until I'm pretty rock solid summer and winter, give or take a fan on the sump in summer. Use your cycle time to do some mechanical tinkering: watch how the flow is going, watch your temp, etc, and start testing your water and keeping a log.

[nano7joy]

if your worried about certain hitchers getting enough light move them to the top of your rock for a while if needed

[motlot77]

my tank is rockin' steady at 80 degrees. i thought it would fluctuate a bit more but so far so good. i haven't had it up during the summer yet but i'm moving coastside soon so that shouldn't be a problem either.

i just wanted to minimize the brown algae bloom and hopefully keep the critters that were light dependent.

oh, also, after the lights clicked off tonight i was shining a light on my rocks and saw a bunch of little bugs crawling around on them. i was wondering if they were pods....they were probably
1-2mm long, and had a worm-like body, sorta like a little maggot. i think they were brownish. sound like pods?

[kau_cinta_ku]

sounds like pods to me