Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Reefer1251
I was told to keep my light on for only 6 hours help minimize the hair algae.
|
"Too much light!" was a phrase aquarium people were spouting for at least the last 50 years or so when it came to nuisance algaes. Too many LFS stores still give this same advice, and today they should know better.
When a lot of areas about aquariums were not well understood, this sort of made some sense. No light meant no algae. You could have nitrates and phosphates off the scale, but without light you wouldn't have an algae problem. This is why you often see fish only displays dimly lit by reef system standards. If you look at how aquariums, both SW and FW, were decorated in those pre-reef days, with the exception of FW live plants, there was nothing that needed light.
Today we know better. Also, we need a lot of light for a long period of time because we want to keep livestock that requires it. Algae need nutrients, and gets them primarily from nitrate and phosphate. If you control them, you can run very bright light and not have an algae problem, because there is nothing for it to feed on.
This is why algae control today is centered upon control of nitrates and phosphates, and to a lessor extent adding livestock that will eat algae we don't want.