Algae Indentification and Help Please

Navarchus · #1 03-25-2011, 03:12 PM

Don’t tern on the light and keep it completely dark
Don’t worry some time in nature corals don’t have sun for several days (usually after storm) and fish don’t eat for days in a time…so keep it cool, everything will be fin if you go by the book.

Just remember that after the “dark age” you shouldn’t go straight back to the normal light regime. When I fought the dino I made a 4 day darkening and on the fifth day I just let the tank site in the surrounding natural light. The next day I started with few hours of actinic and only one hour of MH and littlie by little a raised the number of MH hours.

I do hope that you took all measures before darkening the tank, such as:
Wash all waist accumulated behind your rocks, siphoning out as much dino as you could, rising ph to 8.4 -8.5 and adding GAC and immproving your water flow.

ScubaGirl · #2 03-25-2011, 05:31 PM

Yeah, did everything you just said but my pH wasn't quite that high to start.

Light was on for maybe 20 minutes while I cleaned up last night. I have the air running on one of my powerheads to keep the water oxygenated and I could hear that it was blocked. I had to go in to fix it. Skimmer was overflowing too.

Completing the rest of the "dark cycle" now. Tomorrow evening (Sat.) I'll do some more maintenance. That will make 3 days in the dark.

Navarchus · #3 03-25-2011, 05:44 PM

no! no lights what so ever.....!

ScubaGirl · #4 03-25-2011, 09:22 PM

So am I starting over because I had the light on for 20 minutes?

PoonTang · #5 03-25-2011, 09:28 PM

I just noticed the little bastards starting to grow in my tank too! Grrrr, time to start doing some research I suppose.

ScubaGirl · #6 03-26-2011, 04:33 AM

There's some great info in the links posted in this thread. Definitely worth reading.

Thanks again to the contributors!

Can't wait to see how things have gone tomorrow when I uncover the tank! Drum roll please.....

ScubaGirl · #7 03-28-2011, 05:19 AM

We had an extra 12 hours of dark because I got called into work. I uncovered the tank today and there appears to be no sign of the dino's in the tank!!!! I am soooo thankful!

Fingers crossed that it stays away. Had the lights on for about 2 hours tonight. The fish (and the cat) really seemed to enjoy it. Our cat has missed them.