Performed 3-day blackout for dinos...colors much deeper and saturated than ever

[koral_lover]

I was in amazement after uncovering my tank and lighting it up for the first time in 72 hours. Yes the dinos were gone, lets hope I can keep them gone. However, the most surprising observation was my colors appear much more saturated.

What is responsible for this? The excess in nutrients from the die off in algae? Or the lack of high PAR lighting for three days?

I am not sure, but I want to keep the color I am getting. Will ramp lighting up slowly in terms of duration (MH). I was running my radiums for 7 hours per day...I am tempted to go no longer than 5 now.

Perhaps a day or 2 per month of lights out could be helpful in restoring color...just thought I'd share

[joshky]

I hope you have better luck with your blackout than I did, I just went through dinos myself and the blackout didn't do much for me. Yeah the tank looked great during and right after the blackout, but that's because dinos go waterborne and settle when the lights come back on. I ended up replacing my rock and sand with live stuff from TBS after trying multiple things. I guarantee you it's still in my system but with the biodiversity I think it'll be pretty hard for it to get to the epic proportions it was before, if it even has a chance at all...

I envy those who do truly beat it, it must feel nice finally coming out ahead. I lost my patience and resorted to a quick fix.

Best of luck to you!