How much light before fish

[johnvic]

I have a 34 gal. solana. I set it up almost 3 weeks ago with LR and LS. The LR was cured. I'm waiting a few more weeks before I put a CUC in. Is there any reason to have the light on for any period of time. If I'm sitting at home I turn it on just to see the rock work better but I'm wondering if having the lights on a few hours every day makes sense. I never saw an ammonia spike and I'm assuming that the cured LR took care of any die off. I'm seeing some life on the rocks, I think a couple of feather dusters and a tiny worm in the sand. But I'm nervous about getting a big algae growth happening by having too much light and no CUC to eat it.
Any thoughts on this?
Thanks!

 

[ca161406]

ummm no light wont hurt unless you have nice Coraline growth or coral hichhikers then i wld turn them on. also it'll make some food for the CUC when they get in so they dont starve i would think.
also i would ghost feed for like a week and watch the lvls because of no spike

 

[sepulatian]

Have the light on for the same amount of time that you would if you had creatures in there. The Coraline algae on the rocks grow better with the light. Don't add a cleanup crew just yet. There is nothing for them to eat. You will get several different kinds of algae before you have anything that a cleanup crew can actually live off of. Add some fish food to the tank. Create an ammonia spike and see how quickly the ammonia comes back down. Then wait for nitrites. You will have to test daily. When you see a nitrate spike then you can select a fish.

 

[bs21]

Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/3001498
Have the light on for the same amount of time that you would if you had creatures in there. The Coraline algae on the rocks grow better with the light. Don't add a cleanup crew just yet. There is nothing for them to eat. You will get several different kinds of algae before you have anything that a cleanup crew can actually live off of. Add some fish food to the tank. Create an ammonia spike and see how quickly the ammonia comes back down. Then wait for nitrites. You will have to test daily. When you see a nitrate spike then you can select a fish.

 

[johnvic]

There is some coraline on the LR. I'm happy to add some food and try to get a spike. As far as the algae goes I go away next weekend for 5 nights. Should I be worried about too much algae? This is my first aquarium.

 

[culp]

is the lights on a timer?
if it is going way for 5 days won't hurt any thing since you don't really have any thing in the tank yet.

 

[johnvic]

The light will be on a timer. You hear these horror stories about algae taking over the tank that you want to get a reality check. I'll just set it for 12 hours a day and let it go at that.

 

[salt210]

Id put a timer on the lights anyways. its nice not having to worry about turning them on and off