Lots of questions about BLACK-OUTS!!!

and you can also take your rock out and scrub it to get the algae off, but you can just lightly brush it off with a toothbrush and then do a water change and suck out alot of the stuff floating and then your skimmer will pick some more up,,then a couple days later do the same thing, and so on and so on,,also i do my water changes at night, i think that the water has less nitrates and phosphates being used since algae usually consumes most of them during the day with the lights on, therefore allowing me to remove more nitrates and phosphates in the water column..

your a little overstocked but i am overstocked in my 30gallon and i feed like 4 times a day, i feed alot and have no algae and leave my halide on for 9 hours and i run t5s for like 12..but i got a fuge with a huge ball of cheato and also run media..

other than that man i dont know what else could be giving you an algae problem, keep us posted

 

Well, if it really is over-stocked I don't think there is much you can do (other than selling off some of your livestock). You will always have to add too much phosphate (contained in almost all fish foods) to your system just to keep up with the feeding needs of your livestock. The fact that you have a hair algae problem, and still are reading anything above zero for phosphates, tells me you have a really large amount of phosphate being added into your system. Normally you get a false zero reading as the hair algae consumes the phosphate as quickly as it's added to the system.

 

I have 37 turn over so i dont have really any dead spots. I like the tooth brush idea!!! Can't put a pic on tonight cause it would look horrible with the camera light on it. I am scared to turn it back on tomorrow.... should i keep going with the black out or give my coral a little break?

 

i would never do a black out, now reducing the photo-period then yeah, maybe just cut them on for a few hours..are you seeing any bubbles on the rocks and sand, like in the algae..

and even tho you have that much flow you could still have spots or caves within the rock work that just builds up nitrates and phosphates..

 

I have done 2 total black outs of 4 days each to fight dino. It was probably the most effective intervention I took to battle it. Both times I saw no ill effects to sps.

Each time I used a turkey baster to remove any algae or dino that had settled on the LR or corals daily. When the water cleared I cleaned all mechanical filtration. Dying algae or dino will cause a decline in water quaility so that is something to be considered as well.

I believe Inwall ( moderator) has some valuable information regarding blackouts, perhaps he will chime in.

Good luck

 

I have actually seen a cut in hair algae! I have no nitrates at all and .10 phosphates. I have not seen any bubbles or sand. Today will be the last day of the black out definitely!! BTW 700 post!!