lights and algae

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qwazy101

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Hi,

Is there some bulbs that promote algae growth more then others?

What kind of bulb would do the best to avoid any kind of algae?

Thanks, Jason
 
Sure, just as there are bulbs that promote plant growth more than others.

However in the presence of an abundance of nutrients (as in an aquarium) and light (even inefficient ones), SOMETHING will grow. If it isn't plants, it will almost certainly be algae.

If you don't want to grow plants in your tank, your best bets would be to:
1. Use a bulb of the standard warm or cool white (~3000k), which put out much less of the bandwidth that plants and algae thrive on.
2. Limit your lighting to 10 hours/day or less. If algae is a major issue, a schedule of 5 hours on, 2 hours off, 5 hours on (or similar) has been known to be detrimental to algal growth.
3. Do more water changes. The less nutrients (like nitrate) that the algae have to grow on, the better... up to a point. Very low nitrate levels may cause cyanobacteria (blue/green algae), which the folks in the Planted tank forum will gladly tell you all about (in many a well crafted 4 letter word)...
4. As a last resort, there are fish that eat certain types of algae, but the waste they produce can add to the problem as much as they can help, especially if there are types of algae in the tank that they won't eat. Better to treat the problem (light, nutrients) than the symptom.

Hope that helps...
 

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