Will plants live through a blackout?

[emerald76]

Hi guys, my tank has awful algae thanks to lighting overload (accidental) of 16 or more hours a day. I have Anubias nana, Vals, and anarchis. How long can they safely go without light?


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[BBradbury]

Your Plants

Hi guys, my tank has awful algae thanks to lighting overload (accidental) of 16 or more hours a day. I have Anubias nana, Vals, and anarchis. How long can they safely go without light?


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Hello em...

There are other ways to deal with algae, not just reducing the light. Adding more floating plants like Hornwort and Pennywort are helpful. These plants are better able to use up light and nutrients more efficiently than algae.

A more aggressive water change routine will remove excess nutrients and with no food source, the growth of algae will slow.

I don't recommend messing with the lighting. Aquarium plants are tropical and used to long hours of daylight.

Your decision of course.

B

 

[emerald76]

Okay, but isn't 16 hours a day of light excessive? Plus I really don't want floating plants as that's not really part of what I wanted... So I will try less feeding and more WCs


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[aqua_chem]

16h is super excessive, but you already realize this.

A three day blackout shouldn't hurt anything, but you would probably have better results if you just physically removed as much as you can, depending on what algae you have. Glut/H2O2 is also effective, once again depending on the algae.

 

[emerald76]

Okay I will try to find some and get a scraper from the store!


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[aqua_chem]

Credit cards work well for this. Or old gift cards.