Question about my new T5 lighting

[john m_ lundberg]

I just turned the T5 light on...wow...you want to talk about a difference...and my few little things i had in there were opening up and smiling if you ask me...and who knew how pretty they were!?

But, I dont have the legs for this light, but it does sit just fine on the tank...should I purchase the legs so that its not sitting so close to the water or does it matter?

And does the fan really need to run if I'm just running my moon lights? (its awfully loud)

Thanks for the help!

 

[john m_ lundberg]

Excellent! I was planning on that with the tank anyways (the timed lighting)...I just had a major battle with some pink algae stuff (I'm sure you know the right term...somthing like cy--ajsldjf?), so the light has been off for 3 days...I was going to do 2 hours each day for this week, as I do some water changes, making sure the pink stuff was goine...then up it each week, getting to the full schedule...then adding some of the corals I have wanted to add since the beginning...cant wait for that...well, I'm going to have too..

 

[cr500_af]

Charlie nailed it. Lights out on cyano is just a Band Aid. It will knock it back a little but until you address the issue, like excess nutrients in the water, it will fight back. I had a touch of it, and also at one point a dinoflagellate outbreak (which is easy to mistake for cyano)... I beat it with reduced feedings, wet skimming, and a Phosban reactor. The hardest thing to do was not to go back to my old feeding habits once it was gone.

Unlike many other algae (and cyano is really not an algae, but since it's a nuisance it is easy to lump it in with algae in our minds), it can't thrive in heavy flow. You might look into either redirecting your flow or adding more than you already have. Some nuisance algae loves flow buy cyano doesn't.

I took apart my K4s last night and cleaned the grilles... hair and green bubble algae INSIDE. I don't think those mind flow in the least!

 

[john m_ lundberg]

When this all started a few weeks ago, that's what Chris said about the flow...I know my flow is fine, the lights seemed to do it, but I will pick up some of the phosphate remover that was talked about...directions on the package ok?

cr500_af;386588 wrote: Charlie nailed it. Lights out on cyano is just a Band Aid. It will knock it back a little but until you address the issue, like excess nutrients in the water, it will fight back. Unlike many other algae (and cyano is really not an algae, but since it's a nuisance it is easy to lump it in with algae in our minds), it can't thrive in heavy flow. You might look into either redirecting your flow or adding more than you already have. Some nuisance algae loves flow buy cyano doesn't.

I took apart my K4s last night and cleaned the grilles... hair and green bubble algae INSIDE. I don't think those mind flow in the least!

 

[john m_ lundberg]

I know the flow is fine now cause Chris hooked me up with some serious flow for my tank...serious flow going on now!

cr500_af;386588 wrote: Charlie nailed it. Lights out on cyano is just a Band Aid. It will knock it back a little but until you address the issue, like excess nutrients in the water, it will fight back. I had a touch of it, and also at one point a dinoflagellate outbreak (which is easy to mistake for cyano)... I beat it with reduced feedings, wet skimming, and a Phosban reactor. The hardest thing to do was not to go back to my old feeding habits once it was gone.

Unlike many other algae (and cyano is really not an algae, but since it's a nuisance it is easy to lump it in with algae in our minds), it can't thrive in heavy flow. You might look into either redirecting your flow or adding more than you already have. Some nuisance algae loves flow buy cyano doesn't.

I took apart my K4s last night and cleaned the grilles... hair and green bubble algae INSIDE. I don't think those mind flow in the least!

 

[cr500_af]

Some of that stuff says to just put the media bag in a high-flow area. IMO that may be ok for a "maintenance" situation but when you are trying to get high phospates down, I'd spend the $40 and get a Two Little Fishes reactor. They are small, easy to set up, and you will get a lot higher percentage of your water in contact with the media in a shorter time that way.

New higher amounts of light can definately give the stuff a little Turbo boost... my dino exploded when I went from 4x54w T5s to 6x54w T5s. Apparently I've done OK with getting the water "clean" because I didn't get any sort of bloom when I went to 2x250w MH lamps about 6 weeks ago.

 

[john m_ lundberg]

So, I buy the Phosguard and the Two Little Fishes reactor...the Phosgaurd goes in the reactor? I have no idea.