Lighting Requirements

[tucker]

I have a 20 gallon reef tank with a Marnineland reef capable LED light 18"-24". I can set what time the blue lights come on, which would be one hour before and one hour after the main white lights. What is the minimum amount of time I can have my lights on to prevent nuisance algae?

 

[PSU4ME]

Well I run my lights for 12 hours and they ramp up and down on each side. I would say a minimum would be 8 (so 6 with the mains). I'd shoot for 10-12 if I were you. Your lights are not the main contributer to algae.....water parameters are and with LED's they won't lose spectrum.

As a side note, the marine land LED's are not as strong as other commercially made LED's......just wanted to make sure you were not going to throw high light SPS in there

 

[tucker]

What are some good LED lights for a 20 gallon?

 

[PSU4ME]

It all depends on what you want to spend. Good LED's are 3w ones and some good brands are CREE, Bridgelux, luxeon (sp?) etc.......you'll see them used in fixtures aimed at reefs (I use the ecotech Radions).

On a 20g heat is probably an issue so using LED's is a help there. Check out Reef LED Lights | Reef Aquarium LightingReef LED Lights as I know they have pre made fixtures which might work for you.

And I'll warn you....reefing is addicting.....you'll say "$300 for a good light, well maybe i get a bigger tank then? Oh I like that tang, 4 foot tank you say?" hahaha and it continues from there.

 

[tucker]

Do you have any suggestions for getting rid of hair algae?

 

[PSU4ME]

We can certainly help but you'll need to give me a run down of the tank (equipment, tank age etc), your habits (water changes and feeding), what you feed, your bio-load (inhabitants), your water source (tap or RO/DI) and a current list of parameters....Phosphate, Nitrate etc.

 

[AC273]

I fought hair (filament) algae for many a year after getting a particularly nasty string in my tank by accident. My recommendation would be to run a phosphate sponge media to lower your phosphates and get yourself a mexican turbo snail or two. I know how much of a pain this stuff is, as it clogged my intakes and power heads pretty bad in its hay day. Now, the only stuff that grows is on the shells of my Nas snails, which are moving targets for my Turbos. Rather than trying to net the algae or pull it off by hand, use a siphon tube to suck it up. Pulling it off tends to leave filaments in the water that can cause issues.

I agree with PSU4ME though... knowing more about how you got here will help us understand what advice to give to prevent it in the future beyond general advice or what worked for us.

 

[Doogle]

It all depends on what you want to spend. Good LED's are 3w ones and some good brands are CREE, Bridgelux, luxeon (sp?) etc.......you'll see them used in fixtures aimed at reefs (I use the ecotech Radions).

Phillips LEDs , be on the lookout Cree...ATI POWERMODULE LED/T5 hybrid.

 

[Wrangy]

Cree LEDs (XT) and then also the Luxeon (ES) are the brightest on the market atm as far as my knowledge with Luxeons winning by a little bit if you have no electrical experience. Also the Luxeon neutral whites are better for your reef (due to their colour balance)

If you want to keep high light sps then I'd go a Luxeon led kit with a 50/50 split of Royal blue (for bringing out the colour in your corals) and neutral whites as it's high output and great energy efficiency and you can get a better customisation to what you want exactly.

That's what my knowledge so far on the subject of LEDs is hope that helps