[APD] Siesta to prevent algae?

["CameronM" <cameronm at rse_co.za>]

"Michi Henning" said:

"Our recommendation [to reduce algae growth]:
 Reduce the lighting duration from 12 to 10, 9, or 8 hours. Or,
 even better, allow your plants and fish a `siesta'. The following
 rhythm has proven itself: 4-5 hours light in the morning, then a
 a dark period of 2-4 hours, followed by 4-7 hours of light."

Hi Michi

Although I have not tried this method myself I have 2 cents to add.

1c. Theoretically I get what they're saying but as Tom said a few days/weeks ago this is just going to confuse your plants and waste their energy. Basically they're going to slow down their photosynthesising process in the middle of the day for a siesta only to be told a few hours later that its time to go full ball again! Is this in an effort to imitate nature (clouds overhead etc).

2c. I think this theory would work better (IMHO) if it was on a daily basis, say, one day on one day off (lights). It would hurt the alga much more than the plants.

But as Tom is constantly drilling into us: try and focus on the plant growth and not on the algae. The above method is only for growing algae (again IMO). If you have decent lighting, good co2, and you're feeding the plants regularly then there should be minimal algae. Obviously we all have some algae in our tanks but thats just the way it goes. It would be near impossible to erradicate all alga 100%.

Thanks to Toms advice (about a year ago) I survived a BGA attack of note. It completely engulfed my tank (a wee 10 gallon), poor plants :(. It was suggested to add no3 and do a blackout. I did not do the blackout but did start adding no3 at liberal doses several times a week. It took about 2 weeks but after the 2nd WC all traces of BGA were moot :):):).
To this day the tank is still going fairly well (I now have BBA :) Now there's a sucker thats not as forgiving as BGA, I'm working on it :)

*still waffling* IME BGA shows up in near 'clinical' conditions, new tanks setups etc. These are the conditions that favour BGA, as soon as all the 'processes' like cycling and mulm build up have occured and things begin to fall into place then you find that BGA is not as dominating as before and is pretty much controlable. 

Kindest Regards
Cameron James
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