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kenman345
12/11/2014, 10:27 AM
Hi guys, so I have a BuildMyLED 10,000K MC-Series fixture. It is on a FOWLR tank, and i havent had lighting on the tank for about 2-3 weeks before i received the unit. I was trying to slowly increase the intensity of the channels over time so i didnt spark an algae war in my tank. I set it to about 8% for whites and 6% for Blue and UV. I have had it on the tank for 2 or 3 weeks now and have tons of green hair algae on my rocks.

I havent boosted the light any yet, but was thinking, was I maybe not giving the light enough power, so that the mixture of lighting I actually am giving is the cause of the algae, and not entirely my water parameters, which are quite stable and have been for a while. I have 2 algae scrubbers, on the system, so it makes no sense i should have algae elsewhere.

Can anyone make a recommendation of the new light mixture percentages I should try?

jda
12/11/2014, 02:19 PM
IMO, the light is not going to matter. The algae can/will grow with just about any sort of lights. You are going to need to take care of the nutrients.

kenman345
12/11/2014, 02:25 PM
IMO, the light is not going to matter. The algae can/will grow with just about any sort of lights. You are going to need to take care of the nutrients.

I understand that, but may my light settings be actually mimicking a dieing bulb and sparking the algae growth?

Tigerdragon
12/11/2014, 03:26 PM
Try pushing the light intensity to maybe 70% blue 30% white or 60/20 but you may not have enough light what is lighting period how many hours of white?

kenman345
12/11/2014, 03:30 PM
Try pushing the light intensity to maybe 70% blue 30% white or 60/20 but you may not have enough light what is lighting period how many hours of white?

whites are on about 10 hours, blues 13 hours.

i bumped them all up to 16% for now. You're saying go the 60/20 ratio on them with blues being higher?

Tigerdragon
12/11/2014, 03:33 PM
Yea run blues higher. Might have to reduce white period down to 8 hours just see what happens

kenman345
12/11/2014, 03:39 PM
Yea run blues higher. Might have to reduce white period down to 8 hours just see what happens

Gonna give that a try. At this point, it's just about making sure that when i clean it off that my lights arent tuned to the point that it will make the algae grow rampantly. I understand some algae growth from adding lights back to the tank but i have algae scrubbers and do weekly water changes, and stuff, my water parameters are perfectly okay and have been stable for months, this is the only new addition to the tank that changed its stability