Soft corals and lighting. - Cyano problem.

[thud]

Okay, in order to get rid of my red slime algae/cyano bacteria annoyance I need to keep my lights off as much as possible.
I have a xenia colony and a pearl bubble coral. How much light would these need a day?
I want to do a "blackout" for at least two or three days. I only want the lights to be on as long as needed for the corals to get rid of this cyano..
Thanks in advance.

 

[rbrockm1]

when i had this trouble i got a fish to take care of it. is youir tank recently set up?

 

[teen]

iim pretty sure cyano isnt photosynthetic. its a dynoflagellate that you can get rid of by increasing the flow in your tank. make sure you have good co2 oxygen exchange by having a good rapid flow on the water surface.
i dont think leaving the lights off would do much for cyano, it would work for hair algae though.

 

[thud]

Originally Posted by teen
iim pretty sure cyano isnt photosynthetic. its a dynoflagellate that you can get rid of by increasing the flow in your tank. make sure you have good co2 oxygen exchange by having a good rapid flow on the water surface.
i dont think leaving the lights off would do much for cyano, it would work for hair algae though.
Thanks for your opinion, anyone else?

 

[thud]

Anyone?

 

[abethedog]

I'm going to have to go ahead an bump this one.
So, forgive me if this is stupid, increased flow can help to control/eliminate cyno?
This is good news. I can by more power heads.

 

[teen]

Originally Posted by abethedog
I'm going to have to go ahead an bump this one.
So, forgive me if this is stupid, increased flow can help to control/eliminate cyno?
This is good news. I can by more power heads.
yup.

 

[thud]

Originally Posted by teen
yup.
It certainly will NOT remove the cyano. It may prevent it, but definitely not remove it.

 

[supalupa]

Raise your alk up to 10-12 and keep it there. Cyano should start to go away.

 

[teen]

Originally Posted by thud
It certainly will NOT remove the cyano. It may prevent it, but definitely not remove it.
if you have enough flow in the tank, then you have prevented it from growing everywhere in your tank.
it would help to siphon some of it out first, then increase the flow.

 

[tx reef]

What type of filtration do you have? If your filtration is inadequate, then you will never be able to get rid of excess nutrients and the slime will be around for a long time.
If your filtration is inadequate, increasing flow will not work. When I went through this I pointed all kinds of flow at the slime and guess what it did......it grew these long slime streamers and they just waved back and forth in the flow...... :hilarious