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Light cycle?

Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2012 4:24 pm
by caymanada
I have a 29 gal with power compact lighting, 65w actinic and 65w 10K lights. Right now, I run the actinic for 13 hrs and the the 10K for 4 hrs per day. How many hours per day should I run each? What does everybody else do?

Re: Light cycle?

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 8:28 am
by salt_for_brains
It really depends on your corals. Do you have coral? I run my LED's full spectrum 8 hours and dusk/dawn an hour before and an hour after for a total of 10 hours a day. I have LPS, softies and two BTA's. So if you have corals in your tank I would recommend bumping up your 10K lighting time but keep in mind to do it slowly (i.e. maybe increase an hour and then try another hour in a week).

Re: Light cycle?

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:59 pm
by caymanada
I have 1 soft coral (not sure what type, maybe leather?), some green and brown polyps, some zoas, and a purple mushroom.

Reason I ask, I am fighting a red cyanobacteria problem that has just about wiped out my zoas. I tried the anti-bacterial/chemical way, but immediately recognized that it was a treatment, not a cure, and did not want to become dependent on it. I then bought a Tunze 6025 powerhead to step-up my water flow, but it is still collecting on the zoas and polyps.

I figured if I cut down on the light I might be able to cut down on the red slime, but I do not want to starve everything else. Does the red slime grow faster under a particular type of light? Maybe I should decrease the actinic and step-up the 10K?

Re: Light cycle?

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 11:27 am
by salt_for_brains
It could be caused by prolonged light or too much nutrients or lack of flow or any combination or all of the above------confused yet :P I like to try to elimate one possibility at a time to try and figure out the problem. I think I would look at the nutrients in the water first. Are you feeding too much, water changes, protien skimmer working properly, clean up crew doing the job----things like that. When you do a water change suck out as much of the Cyano as you can. When you feed see if any of the food is settling in those trouble areas. The couple times over the years I have experienced Cyano I have always had success eliminating it by doing water changes and directing power head flow to those dead areas where Cyano likes to form. With the softies you mentioned cutting back your lighting some will not be detrimental.