T5 / algae question

Running a T5 on my 65 and noticed lately that I am scraping my glass more often that I used to (used to be once every week-week and 1/2, now every 3-4 days). All params are OK so I decided to change the amount of time I am running the lighting. I currently have the blue on from 2PM - 9PM and the white from 4PM to 8PM. Am I running too long, too little?? What does everyone recommend? Corals I have are waving xenia, mushrooms, green star polyps, and orange polyps.

Thanks

 

what lighting did you have before?
its normal to experiece algae when you change the lighting...if you keep you water params in check it should mellow out..

 

I had 1/2 metal halide (viper HQI) and the other 1/2 was 24" T5. I decided to go all t5 because the viper transformer wound up crapping out and corals seemed to do fine with the small T5 so went the cheaper / more uniform route.

 

4 Hours for your main lights is way to short. I'd be running your lights for a total of 12 to 14 hours. with your actinics one 1 hour before and 1 hour after the 'white' lights.

When you increase your lighting you will experience an algae bloom but it will subside when the tank gets used to the light

J

 

are you experienceing more algae on the side with the new light fixture or is it even through the tank?
what were you getting for po4 and no3 when you tested?

 

po4 - .05 and NO3 - 20ppm - should be OK right?

 

Algae is definitely only on the sides of the tank and on the power heads. Doesn't seem to grow anywhere else (although I just noticed a new algae next to my polyp corals- posted in another thread).

 

So you would run actinics for like 14-16 hrs per day? Seems like a long photo-period to me. I guess that might simulate summer days in the tropics though. I run my actinics for 12hrs and my white for 10hrs per. Would extending my photoperiod slightly to a schedule similar to yours benefit my corals? I think if I chose to do that I would have to take a few weeks to slowly extend the lighting out.

 

I run halide for 9.5 hours and antics for 12.

 

yep when increasing the lighting you will get a lot of algea