Turn off your lights for a couple days

No it would come out. The ambient light from your room would be enough for it to see where it was going. My tangs all go to sleep too but I saw them all swimming around yesterday afternoon.

 

I might try this on my mantis tank next time she molts. Because when she molts, she stays shut up in her den for 3 or so days. Literally shut up in there, she blocks the entrance with rocks. I'm battling cylcling algae at the moment, and a 3 day break from lighting, except maybe the fuge light, will help my chaeto take over the icky algae in the display tank.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

I am curious as to how this works out also. I want to try it but worried about the corals.

 

Think about how long your corals go for without light when they are being shipped from Indonesia. I dont think 3 days would kill them

 

so as long as the lights are the same as when you shut them off they won't get light shock or stressed when they come back on?
I just saying everybody makes a big deal out of accumulating corals to lights. like one hour a day and such.
I would also like to see the acceptance rate for the corals shipped from there.Another words how many don't make it.

 

I have shut down my lights for 4 days once while on vacation. Everything, including corals, where just fine.
But, as stated above, this will not work for cyano. Cyano does not need light to feed itself, it can stay alive solely on the nutrients. It may very well recede, maybe even to the point you think it's gone, but it will be back.

 

I'm going to run only my PCs tomorrow and leave the MHs off another day, then I plan on running the MHs like normal on Wednesday. Although I'm thinking I may only run my halides for half the day Wednesday and return to normal on Thursday. To help re-acclimate the corals.

It was weird coming home just now to a dark fish tank. Heh. 8)

 

I turned mine off for 5 days completely. Nothing on. I had cyano that was increasingly getting worse and finally developed dino.

Prior to doing this I cut the feedings down by over half, added phosban and carbon reactor,lots of manual removal (dixie cups full at least daily) increased flow, decreased the lighting time considerably. However when lights came back on I noted that there was mild cyano/dino and by end of the evening it was massive again.

So I cut my lights off completly and bumped my pH up to at least 8.4. The lights remained off for 5.5 days. I have SPS, Clams, LPS, softies in my tank.

When I turned on my lights everything looked fine. My large clam was gaping just a bit but returned to normal right after lights went back on. I had to reacclimate my corals to the lights. I cut my T5 lights down a couple hours the first night, ran my MH for 2 hours only for a day. Then I increased the T5 to normal and added an hour to MH each day. I am still only running my MH at 5 hours

I am at 3 weeks post this. No signs of cyano and no signs of dino. Coral and clams are happy as a clam. My tank is cleaner then ever....sand is so white! I am maintaing the pH level at 8.4, kept the reduced feeding schedule, and am thinking about adding 1 more hour of light to my MH in a couple days. Only thing that seems to have suffered at all from this outbreak is my diamond goby. He is awful thin still. I think he almost died from the outbreak (nothing he could eat) and is slow to recover. I am trying to target feed him as he is hiding in his hole a lot.

But I would recommend at least trying this if you have reduced your nutrients in the tank

 

I turned off my lights on Bob the last time he molted. He had a HORRIBLE molt...lasted for almost a week! He could not loose his entire shell (?) and was really stressed. He was darting back and forth in his tank. He would come out of his den one day with his swimmettes to throw out. A couple days later he came out with a part of his shell....couple days later more...I swear it took a week for him to molt and then he locked himself in his den for several more days.

He actually settled down (wasnt darting around the tank like he was) once I turned off the lights. I tried to stay out of the room however my office is his tank room...so I couldnt.

But all is well. I really helped with teh algea..cause like you know you cant clean their tank when they are PMS (Pre-molting syndrome) or actually molting or for a few days after actually. So tank gets horrid