Reef nutrition

Avoid red light when cyanobacteria is present?

Squist

Squist

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I'm dealing with a cyano bloom. High nutrients and a 4-month old tank have something to do with it. I've adjusted nutrient input and changing water to get NO3 and PO4 levels back in check.

I am wondering though: is it at all likely that my 2-hour night cycle of 80% red light at 30% intensity is stimulating cyanobacteria bloom? These two article abstracts surfaced in search 'Blue light reduces photosynthetic efficiency of cyanobacteria...' and 'Far‐red light promotes biofilm formation in the cyanobacterium ...' and they got me thinking that there could be something here that experience in the club might help me parse through.

After seeing these articles, I removed a red light period in my lighting cycle where I ran 80% red and super-minimal blue and white at 30% intensity couple hours from 11pm-1am.

Just a simple correlation without causation? Or is red light something I should just use as needed, like when I want to see into the tank in the dark?
 
I had an out break in my work tank so I shift to blue dominant light... cyano doesn't photosynthesize well under blue light per the article. From my little experiment it works pretty well. A lot of the cyano in my tank receded. That said, you still need to solve the root cause in terms of phosphates and nitrates... otherwise, you risk a return of cyano when you turn our lights up again towards more of a mixed spectrum.

though, phosphate to me is the bigger contributor. I run a high nutrient, high nitrate tank for my shrooms... no cyano whatsoever. just tons of GHA. lol. (though the GHA probably out competes the cyano for phosphates, etc)
 
I ran a ton of red in my algae scrubber, and it did spill over in my sump pretty substantially.
But I never had much Cyano there. Just regular algae.
And I did occasionally have Cyano in my main tank.
So who knows on the light.

Fix for me: GFO. Get those phosphates way down.
 
Coral reefer said:
Why are you doing that with red light in the middle of the night?
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Well, middle of the night for one may be end-of-day for another :) I ran it so when I was up late I could still look at the tank. And it looked pretty cool under red lights. And the light could do it.

But you’re right, why? I probably spent 2 hours of the 100 or so that the lights were actually on looking at it. I’m better off setting up a red light profile and manually switching it on when I want to look at what’s moving around at night.
 
I ran super low intensity red light for a sunset effect. I will say I did have a bout of cyano but I never attributed it to the red light. I stopped because I read an article about it being bad for coral.
 
rygh said:
Get those phosphates way down.
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Right. I ran it up too high I suspect trying to get phosphates on the radar. New tank. I may have been feeding too aggressively.

Now I have an auto-feeder (thanks @Austin !) and I’m feeding less but more consistently.

Things should smooth out in time. I do need to explore GFO. Haven’t started with that yet.
 
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