Two quick questions

[StickyTuba]

Ok, because it has been summer, I haven't had my heater in my tank.
I am thinking that I need to put it back in but I can't remember if I need to keep the tank higher than 80 degrees (that is what it is reading at this time)

Also,
is 5-7 hours of light too little or have people found that to be enough? I currently run them about 10.5 hours but I have and have had a hair algae problem that I am working on and I wondered about dropping the light times.

Thanks

 

[Hara]

80 is a good temp for the tank....as for your lighting, what all do you have in the tank? If there are no corals, you really only need to have the light on for your viewing.

 

[xIHaKIx]

I just noticed the temp drop today and put my heater on.....I got a temp reader thingy in my tank and it has be in between the green, the green is in the 70's then there is yellow about it and yellow below it (60 and 80) .... I normally keep my tank in the green and high yellow (70-80) but I got a 10 gallon so my 15w lamp help out some.....This is to help you out with your temp question, no idea about the algae.

 

[Hara]

I got a temp reader thingy in my tank and it has be in between the green, the green is in the 70's then there is yellow about it and yellow below it (60 and 80) .... I normally keep my tank in the green and high yellow (70-80) but I got a 10 gallon so my 15w lamp help out some.....This is to help you out with your temp question, no idea about the algae.

I am not quite sure how this helps answer the question.
Vagueness in temperature readings can be gotten away with a whole lot easier in freshwater than in a saltwater tank. Temperature swings are not tolerated very well with inverts and corals. Although fish do adapt somewhat, it leaves them more stressed and prone to illness.

 

[StickyTuba]

I do have some Kenya tree corals.
Obviously I don't want to harm them but I also want to get rid of the hair algae.
My water parameters have been where they need to be the last couple of times that I have checked and I have been doing water changes every day since I returned home, I was on vacation, because the algae had gone crazy. So I am trying to stay on top of it before it becomes an issue again.

 

[Hara]

after just going 6 complete days without lighting due to hurricane Rita, with virtually no harm done to my corals, I can assure you that lessening the lighting time will not harm your kenya tree. It may sulk up a bit, but it wont harm it. Now the bad news, just lessening the light by a few hours will not help the hair algae problem, at least that has been my experience. I did the water changes, plucked it out manually every day and had the lights totally off before I could get a handle on it. Once again, this is just my experience with that particular problem.

 

[hcuellart]

I think 10.5 hrs. is OK if you are considering corals as Hara said, lowering a couple of hrs won't do much to erradicate hair algae, I would check your bulbs how old are they and are they near the surface? I would chack the PO4s and SiO4s these might be causing the HA blooms.
HTH

 

[StickyTuba]

Ok, I will continue to manually remove the HA and do water changes.
I also am going to turn off my lights for a few days.
I will hopefully be able to get a handle on the algae that way.

I will continue to do my water testing to make sure that I don't have any spikes or higher levels.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Guest]

Most corals come from waters in the 80-82 F range. If it's FO, then somewhere in the 70s is good enough. As far as your lights are concerned, I agree with Hara but 10.5 hours is definitely one of your causes of hair algae. Try running them around 7-8 hours a day and you should see an improvement in your HA. Beware, once that algae dies from lack of light, if you don't do a large water change, the phosphates will be released back into the water and once the lights come on it, ding ding, round three!

KG

 

[Guest]

No offense, but I'd disagree with the less lighting have any effect on the algae. Also, testing for phosphates is a waste of money since we can only test for one type of phosphates and the algae may be consuming them as quickly as they enter the tank. If there's HA, there's high phosphates.

KG