Fuge light causing algae outbreak?

[350gt]

I haven't had them but a few months...


guess it couldn't hurt to swap them out to see...

[BBQHILLBILLY]

turn them off or reduce the time to test. If you have AIs why have T5s?

[350gt]

They are only on 6 hours.. I have some other bulbs, might just swap them out..

[Sherita]

I've always found that any time I make changes to my tanks, I get a small cyano bloom. Normally it clears up on its' own in a few days to a couple of weeks.

It is possible that your reverse lighting could be causing it, I get the same thing occasionally in my tanks. I forgot to turn off my sump work lighting under one of my tanks a while back, and it triggered an outbreak. But, it cleared back up with no action on my part. Cyano normally only shows up if there is something for it to feed on, what are your water params?

[Fishstix@JewelsOfTheSea]

Yeah the bulbs or water flow are usually the issue, if all other perimeters are good. The refuge with macro shouldn't cause cyno to grow because the macro and cyno are fighting for the same nutrients. I would venture to say that if you have lots of fish, perhaps overfeeding could also be an issue and the food and waste depositing in that area. A small powerhead with flow directing in that area should do the trick. Without looking at the tank hard to say but keep us posted.

[FireWater]

New sand or old Tony? You said you were rinsing it then stopped. My experience has been anytime that I have tried to add sand it has caused a small outbreak. Maybe the bacteria is colonizing that area? Don't know really. Kind of like a new restaurant is always busier than the old ones for a while.

I started getting some breakouts on my sand bed and what I have started to do again is stir and siphon the sand bed to help clean it while doing water changes. Seems to be keeping the cyano out breaks I was having down to a minimum. Only thing I would worry about is if you have a deeper sand bed in the display. I purposely kept my sand bed at 2" or less.

[Big_Pun]

everything I've read on cyano is that it's nothing like controlling hair algae and or diatoms. so it's controlled diff, it's more than likely caused by the change in your system from gfo. the additives to battle cyano or redslime neutralize certain acids or are some sort of oxidizer. like sherita said its from a change in your system, so leave everything the way it is and ride it out. stir the sand and manually remove it. vacuuming the sand has helped me might want to try that.