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

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by CoralBeautyII
The posters tank has how many fish? 1? 2?

I have 5. All of my fish remain active and feed normally which has been mentioned many times. My tank gets plenty of ambient light. Only people with extreme circumstances have been blacking out their tanks entirely. Most get ambient light of some sorts. In my case its sunlight, much like a overcast day would be in the ocean.

[CoralBeautyII]

Originally posted by melev
Your fish may be a tad more skittish than most. That being said, I have something like 26 fish in my tank right now, and they are quite shy compared to some tanks I see at my LFS and at friends' homes. I wish my fish were more playful with me.

If your fish can see the food, they will come to it. I promise they will adapt to the situation, since they will be hungry. Tangs can go for a while without food -- just think about shipping to the wholesalers, and from them to your LFS. They aren't fed before shipping to avoid their feces polluting the water. Still, if you put the food in the tank, if they recognize you, they'll eat.

I've had to travel before, and early in the morning hours before the lights turn on, I've attached nori to the clip and my fish all come out to eat it even though my original thought was to put the food there so that they'd have something to eat later in the day.

I've been keeping fish for quite a number of years, and what you are saying seems unique rather than typical.

If your tank doesn't have cyano problems, that's great. And if it does, you can always use medication to kill it. Aquabucket came up with a natural solution that works nicely too.

I blame the yellow tangs lol. Everything was calm until i added them a few months ago. I have three yellow tangs that are really skittish, and when they get scared they send the whole tank into panic mode, like everyone saw a shark or something
I dont have cyano, or hair algae, so i guess i dont need a black out, but the posters corals are gorgeous so i was tempted...but i dont think its for my fishees

[melev]

I totally believe that. And that is one of the reasons I reduced the tang population from 6 in my reef to only 2. I prefer to see the activity of all my little fish over seeing a few large tangs.

[laszlo805]

i will try this this month

[2_zoa]

I wonder if this would still be effective if I run my lights for just a few hours a day. Maybe 3 hours.

[mat167]

Just like to say that my actinics are back on after 72 hours w/o lights, and 100% of my cyano is gone. The dinos are still there though...anyone know of a good way to eradicate those suckers? I was told that hypoalkalinity would do it by one person, and hyperalkalinity by another so I'm a bit skeptical. Any thoughts?

[reefworm]

Back to the original topic... I have to say thanks for the idea. Today is day 4 - lights back on - and the sand and glass are clean! Great idea!

[Mykel Obvious]

Originally posted by 2_zoa
I wonder if this would still be effective if I run my lights for just a few hours a day. Maybe 3 hours.

I'm thinking no... I don't think it takes very long for photosynthesis to start producing food for the algae

[Craig Lambert]

I blacked out my tank for the first time on Wednesday, and will uncover it tomorrow morning. (Saturday). I ordered a detritivore kit from Inland Aquatics to recharge my 3 year old sandbed and since they recommend lights out and covering the tank for 24 hours, I decided to go with 72. I have some dinos and a few very small areas of cyano so we'll see how it turns out.

[2_zoa]

Okay all,

I have done the three day with a three hour peroid of light on. the results......not as good as just having the lights off totally for three days. I scrubbed my rock for HA two days before the "black out" and what I missed is in bad shape. I was also going through a diatom bloom and that is gone.

As this sounds you would think I had a small tank overloaded, and that is just not the case.... I am just blessed that way.LOL
My tank only has two fish and some corals.

[melev]

2_zoa - the three days of darkness was never designed to get rid of GHA. It was and still is for Cyano Bacteria blooms.

I'm sure the lack of light weakened it some, to the point that it may be easier to pluck it out, but giving it that 3 hour burst of light daily isn't going to work in your favor.

[Untamed12]

Having fought with cyano for some time (5 months), I decided to give a darkness period a shot.

I kept the tank dark for 40 hours. (2 nights, 1 day cycle) My refugium light remained on 24/7, and I fed the fish as usual.

The results have been incredible. The cyano has completely vanished from the display. (I still have some in the 'fuge)

Now...it has only been 3 days since blackout. The cyano may well yet return....but there is no doubt that this made a dramatic effect and had no visible impact on anything else in the tank.

I am convinced that this is a very effective tool in fighting cyano.

[zeusfc]

Originally posted by Untamed12
Having fought with cyano for some time (5 months), I decided to give a darkness period a shot.

I kept the tank dark for 40 hours. (2 nights, 1 day cycle) My refugium light remained on 24/7, and I fed the fish as usual.

The results have been incredible. The cyano has completely vanished from the display. (I still have some in the 'fuge)

Now...it has only been 3 days since blackout. The cyano may well yet return....but there is no doubt that this made a dramatic effect and had no visible impact on anything else in the tank.

I am convinced that this is a very effective tool in fighting cyano.

For a fish-only (which i assume your's is due to your stock list)this is brilliant! good to hear that new people are giving this a try!

[zeusfc]

Originally posted by Untamed12
Having fought with cyano for some time (5 months), I decided to give a darkness period a shot.

I kept the tank dark for 40 hours. (2 nights, 1 day cycle) My refugium light remained on 24/7, and I fed the fish as usual.

The results have been incredible. The cyano has completely vanished from the display. (I still have some in the 'fuge)

Now...it has only been 3 days since blackout. The cyano may well yet return....but there is no doubt that this made a dramatic effect and had no visible impact on anything else in the tank.

I am convinced that this is a very effective tool in fighting cyano.

For a fish-only (which i assume your's is due to your stock list)this is brilliant! good to hear that new people are givingg this a try!

[FranktheTankTx]

Can macro algae survive a "black out"? I was curious is a black out in the refugium would be of any advantage?

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by FranktheTankTx
Can macro algae survive a "black out"? I was curious is a black out in the refugium would be of any advantage?

Macro algae can survive black-outs of much longer duration. I have seen many types of macros survive in total darkness for weeks at a time.

[FranktheTankTx]

I was just thinking a black out in my HOB refugium might be a good idea. I get some cyano that takes off in there from time to time. Only thing in there is a DSB & chaeto. Maybe the black out would knock out the cyano from time to time - DT looks great and has no nusciance algae.

[melev]

Frank, that would be fine. The cheato will not be adversely affected.

[CoralBeautyII]

Would leaving just the LED moon lights on have the same effect?
this way my fish can see a little and i can see in a little too

[melev]

The ambient room light is sufficient. You don't need any other light, and your fish will be fine.

[CoralBeautyII]

Originally posted by melev
The ambient room light is sufficient. You don't need any other light, and your fish will be fine.

thanks
i think im gonna try it. i have a small patch of cyano on a zoa rock that i cleaned off with a toothbrush and since doing that the cyano has punished me and grew back even bigger

[r-balljunkie]

+1
yeppers.

We had a collective city wide lights out experiment in Houston this summer.....power for that matter as well. my tank looked great after we got the power back on. I haven’t done it since.... haven’t needed to.

c

[CoralBeautyII]

Originally posted by waveform
Some pictures is sometimes better than words.

before the black out





After the black out

I know this threads been around but I just looked at the pics.
Some of the corals arent in the same spots as they were before, can you explain this?
There are two green candycanes in the before photo, but in the after only one green candycane is in the picture, where did the other one go? did it die?
In the before photo there are also a few corals in front of your cave, in the after photo's they are gone or moved.
If the after photo coral placement is different then how can i buy into this? If the tank has been altered in a way, either the corals were all removed, and the tank was thoroughly cleaned out then everything restocked again...sorry but thats how it looks to me
If everything was in the same spot then id be sold, but its not.

[spleify]

Do you suspect foul play CoralbeautyII??????

Folks move there corals sometimes.

I have done the lights out a few times and had very good luck with it.

[JohnL]

This thread was automatically split due to performance issues. You can find the rest of the thread here: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...readid=1562256