Lay off the lights?

Hello 3reefers!

My tank is 3.5 weeks old. Water parameters are as follows: 8.2Ph, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 80ppm, Water Temp. 81, Salinity 1.022...

Lately my rock has been getting darker and darker... should I lay off the lights or is this normal... I am using 216watt of t5 lighting 10k with actinic (they are on for 8 hours) is that even necessary with no corals or anemone's? Please check out the white stuff on pic 2... is that normal too?

I have 2 clowns, 1 yellow tang, cleaner wrasse, goby, assortment of small hermit crabs and snails.

90lb lr, 70lb sand

Thanks for your help! I don't want algae to win the war if there's something I can do now!

Ryan

 

Looks pretty normal for a tank that old. with just fish, snails and inverts you really dont need the run the light that much.

 

I agree...... Make a light cycle so their on when you are most likely checking out your tank.... I hate seeing my tank with no lights on, but its necessary.... How much direct sun light does your tank get??

 

it gets no direct sunlight, however, ambient light from the front door signifies the time of day for the fish.

I am going to cut the light off until the nitrates drop and I can add coral to eat up some of the nutrients feeding the algae... does that sound good?

Ryan

 

Give it a try... I had to leave my lights off for a couple days before due to a hair algae flare up, and my tank is loaded with corals, and I had no ill effects...

[img=http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7061/picture1043kn8.th.jpg]

 

Great picture...
Hope one day to get there...
Thanks for the great advice everyone... anyone else with thoughts?
karma your way!

Ryan

 

You also have to remember your tank is still cycling.... You'll have algae blooms here and there.. We've all had them, and we've all hated them...LOL.... I wouldn't add any more fish for a while, that's a big bioload for a 3.5 week old tank... JMO...

 

as the others have said, I wouldn't worry about it too much. My tank is about 5-6 weeks old and I am also experiencing algae blooms, pretty bad too.

 

80 nitrates, water change time. Also you could not run lights at all while the tank cycles. There is nothing that is going to lower those nitrates except algae. Either micro or macro. The water change and cutting the lights off for a couple days should do it. Try running chemi pure, I run it all the time.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it either. We had an algae bloom at week 3 and by week 6 it's gone and we have good coraline growth. I started running the lights at week 3 and ran them on a timer for four hours a day. I run them six hours a day now, and no more nasty algae, just enough to feed my snails.