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

[jpa0741]

Originally posted by Dejavu
I don't think I could take three days of not see my tank too.

I hear ya! I am waiting for my tank to get bad enough to try this. Sounds like a great idea. Maybe thread of the month?

[chris wright]

I turn on a side lamp that lights up the tank a little at night, its not enough light/time to effect algae growth, but long enough to check on livestock, plus allows a little viewing.

1 observation i have made is that my golden wrasse goes to bed early, so to speak, im going to start feeding earlier in the day. I feed twice a day so its getting feed but i still like to see all my fish eat twice a day.

Having the lights off is really working for me, Im happy with the results.

I can not say that my skimmer is getting extra skimmate though as i am experimenting to get better skimmate and am adjusting water parameters, Had to wait a couple of months for decent test kits so i have to adjust all levels back to the correct levels.

Ill post again in a few days to update my progress. Very happy so far.

[purplereef]

Very, very interesting. I am wondering if anybody with an all SPS tank has tried this? It also sounds like there is a lot of people out there going through what I am going through and that is a bad case of Cyanobacteria. I also have a lot of money tied up into my tank. I wonder if I should try this?

[chris wright]

If you dont feel confident, you might try a day at a time. Turn on your lights to check on all your inhabitants, if there is no evident problems, turn the lights of again.

Check in the morning and the evening. Ten minutes wouldnt make a difference just for checking.

Just a thought.

[melev]

My lights are on today. The cyano bacteria that was in my refugium is gone. The brown stuff on the tips of the corals is virtually gone, just a hint here or there. The glass is clean and doesn't need wiping.

My clam is out and happy, and the corals are starting to perk up. My almost 5 year old A. millepora is RTNing in spots, but I do hope that it won't wipe out the colony.

If I had to do this again, I'd probably do it for 48 hours rather than 72 only to avoid pushing the corals too far with darkness. My goal in this case was to stop what I believe were dinoflagellates and I felt I had to go with the full duration rather than have it just regain strength after the lights were on again. That opinion may change as I observe my tank for the next few days.

I'm implementing my new lighting strategy as of today as well, where the MH will be on no more than 7 hours a day, staggered over a 10 hour period. I discussed this in my 280g thread:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...35#post9679935

[Aquabucket]

That's great that many of you are seeing good results so far!

Marc, I am sorry to hear about the RTN on a coral you've had for some time. I hope that it recovers. I do have a few acro frags in my tank and never did they show any stress from a 3 day black-out though.

I'd hate to see someone lose a lot of SPS trying this so be careful and observe your tanks closely. Also please keep in mind that my tank gets a lot of indirect sunlight during the day which may make the black-out less stressful than if it were in total darkness.

[Icefire]

Did it for 4 days to help my green water problem (see avatar) and it reduced to 30% maybe but my xenya is near dead, shrinked 75% in size.

[melev]

Originally posted by Aquabucket
That's great that many of you are seeing good results so far!

Marc, I am sorry to hear about the RTN on a coral you've had for some time. I hope that it recovers. I do have a few acro frags in my tank and never did they show any stress from a 3 day black-out though.

I'd hate to see someone lose a lot of SPS trying this so be careful and observe your tanks closely. Also please keep in mind that my tank gets a lot of indirect sunlight during the day which may make the black-out less stressful than if it were in total darkness.

Here's a picture of my tank from today. I'm keeping an eye on that particular coral, but everything else seems to be okay.

[Aquabucket]

Your tank looks nice Marc!

Icefire ~ It looks like you have serious problem on your hands. As far as Xenia goes I've had it live in stagnant buckets of SW with-out lights for weeks at a time. As long as its not melting away it should come back just fine if you can clear up your situation soon enough. Are you getting an ammonia spike when all that phyto dies?

[PupChow]

3 days with no light with only the fudge turn on at its regular time.

still a tiny bit of cyano on the sandbed, but a lot actually moved to the fudge, which is fine by me!

broypsis didn't seem to really grow as much during the light out period, but they are still there.

Will try again next month!

[Aquabucket]

You will not get rid of bryopsis that easy. Now is a good time to tweeze and siphon as it will be in a weakened state.

[melev]

Originally posted by Aquabucket
You will not get rid of bryopsis that easy. Now is a good time to tweeze and siphon as it will be in a weakened state.

I agree.

[buffalo123]

It make sense that we are often overkill with the lighting. I too will give this lights out idea.
Must be a good thing as in nature a few days of storm , hurricane season, monsoons, etc equate to low light days

[blue_eyes53813]

I left mine off for 2 days . I had to turn them back on a little early becuase my acros was lossing slimey white mucus? Not sure what it was but as soon as I turned the lights on they were fine. Most algae was gone just a little here and there. I did a big water change and the algae is even less today... Great idea

[melev]

The milli continues to lose tissue, and I continue to frag it hoping to save all that I can. The rest of the reef seems to be fine, with only a couple of small spots of RTN occuring.

[sjediets]

This makes total sense.

After hurricane Wilma my lights were off on my 7g nano for 6 days....just some ambient sunlight in the room.

So were the pumps and filter for that matter...a battery powered airstone kept the whole thing alive. The clown/bta, branching hammer, inverts, gorgs,shrooms, polyps and xenia came through just fine. I had no loss whatsoever.

I'm going to hit it with a "planned outage" and see if I can turn back the hair algae.

[DizziDezi2]

I do this on my nano when I notice an algea outbreak beginning- but I only do it 1-2 days tops. Noone in the tank really seems to mind.

[tangyreefer05]

This does work. I use to for controlling algae blooms.

[Abynum1]

What kind of effect,if any,will this have on a BTA?

[melev]

I'll field that one since my tank has 3 BTAs. They simply weren't as fluffy as usual during the dark period. Now that the lights are on as normal, they've regained their normal size.

[rickh]

I tried it. My Bryopsis is still alive and well.
The snails, sea hare, phosban, skimmer, water changes, new bulbs and less food haven't helped either. Oh yea--and kalk paste. R

[Abynum1]

Thanks melev. By the way I'm using the fuge light you recommend.
How many hours a day to you normally run it?

[melev]

Rickh - the 'cure' to bryopsis is pruning it as much as you possibly can. Pinch off a chunk, remove your hand from the tank and dip your fingers in a bowl of water to rinse them clean. Repeat until your back hurts and your fingers are wrinkly. Stop and rest, watch TV, work, play with your kids. The next day, do it again. The more you can reduce its volume, the better. Using a turkey baster, blow out the bryopsis as much as possible to get all the trapped detritus out of its core. It uses this as a mini-sandbed to feed upon and fuels its growth.

If you want to try Lettuce Nudibranchs, they will help as well. However, they float away in flow and are easily swept into the sump, refugium, or sucked against pump intakes. You'll have to study your tank closely to locate them, rescuing them as necessary. Place them back on the bryopsis or against the rock nearby. They float very easily, so it is kind of hard to press them against the rock but if you give them a couple of seconds as you shield them from the flow with your fingertips, they'll grab on quite quickly.

[melev]

Originally posted by Abynum1
Thanks melev. By the way I'm using the fuge light you recommend.
How many hours a day to you normally run it?

It depends on the macro algae. For Caulerpa, run them around the clock. With Cheatomorpha, 8 to 12 hours should be plenty. And replace them as they get old as the bulbs appear to be one of the reasons I see cyano growing in my refugium (my bulbs are a year old now).

[SaltwaterDaddy]

Just like to say I've been doing this for over 4 yrs now with saltwater tanks. I've been doing it over 20 years on freshwater tanks. I don't just turn them off every 2 months or so. I turn them off for 3 days when I see a problem starting. I have several tanks, some just SPS, some softies, and some mix. I also have clams. Plus I have some freshwater tanks still.

I tested this idea several years ago and the longest I left the lights off on an SPS tank was 5 days. I found it to be effective after about 3 days; longer period of time didn't really matter. When they were turned back on, I did it for 4 hrs the first day and then 6 the next and then back to 12-14 hrs.

Another idea I do is to turn one tank off and leave the other tank on (They are connected ... share the same water). This helps the PH and O2.

Also, turning your refug. on for the entire time the light is off, helps the PH too.

Just wanted to input more proof this idea works w/o any effects on the livestock.