Lighting period to reduce or get rid of algae

[flanque]

Hi,

I've slowly been building up an short brown hair like algae growth all over my rocks. I've since changed to feeding every other day, regular water changes and reduced lighting period. It seems to have worked a bit, but I'm not sure if I'm being aggressive enough with the lighting period.

It was at 10hrs before I reduced it to what it is now, which is 7 hours. Is that enough? I've realistically only got corilamorphs to be concerned about.

My goal is to get rid of it all, or significantly enough so that I can control it more or less with feeding and water changes. I'll also be reintroducing a phosphate pad which I found to be great in the past.

Thanks.

 

[lando]

You can even cut back on the light cycle by a couple more hours/day while you are still battling the algae. Getting rid of it can take a while. Durning the water changes, I suggest removing the rock and scrubbing it off in the water you have taken out of the tank. As always, keep and eye on PO4 in your source waer when doing frequent water changes. Sounds like you are on the right track.

 

[flanque]

Hmm, that's a great idea about scrubbing the rock during the changes. I'll have to give that a go. At a minimum it'll give me an instant clean look.

 

[melosu58]

I always suggest taking a toothbrush and rubberbanding it to the end of the siphon hose and scrubbing the rock with the toothbrush and drawing it out with the siphon hose during your PWC`s. It will not hurt to do a blackout with your lighting for a few days to help break this algea up. Hope all goes well.

 

[flanque]

Will the corilamorphs be affected by this? I don't want them to perish.

 

[melosu58]

They will be OK. I`ve heard of people doing a weekly blackout and the corals were OK.

 

[MT79]

I would go for 2 full days lights out. If that is not enough maybe one or two more. Manually remove as much algae as you can before and after. I've done what Lando suggested w/ good results as well. A lot of detritus was trapped in the rocks and removing that seemed to help reduce algae that grew back.

 

[flanque]

That's a good idea. Maybe I just need a good clean out of the rocks to remove any old food sources.