I also read somewhere that the spectrum of the light source can also help promote the growth of green algae as well. I would replace the bulbs in your shop light with a set that are designed for aquariums such as Aquean full spectrum bulbs, cut back on the feeding for a while and reduce the amount of time that the lights are on. You can also use Algae Fix to help with the removal.
Agreed,I never got why people with no live plants keep their tank lights on for hours on end throughout the day.Unless the tank is in a windowless room the surrounding light should be enough.
The basic strip lights that come with most tank lids should be good enough..Yours is a case where I would remove the fish from the tank to do a water change...Place them in a bucket of tank water and syphon the gravel while draining the tank almost completely.Wipe all the inside glass panels of all signs of film and algae and syphon out cloudy water and then refill with fresh dechlorinated water.
Agreed,I never got why people with no live plants keep their tank lights on for hours on end throughout the day.Unless the tank is in a windowless room the surrounding light should be enough.
I do. I have my timer setup for 6 hours of white, 1 hour of actinic, and 5 hours of LED moonlights. My 125 is in the darkest area of my house it looks like a black box all day without light, and I like to give them somewhat of a simulated day and night. My living room starts to get ambient light at around 11-12, lights kick in at 1130. Plus I prefer to keep algae in my tank. It does consume extra nutrients in the water, giving my fish a little bit better water quality. None the less helps with extra feeding for my SAE's and common pleco. With those fish, weekly WC's (30-35%), I don't scrape algae off the walls but maybe once a month, and I only scrape the back of the tank once a year so that it can still propagate. I've only had to take out my fake plants to clean them once a year as well.
Just for reference, 15 denison barbs, 5 red eye tetra's, 3 brilliant rasboras, 4 scissortail rasbora's, had 3 SAE's but one just died, and once common pleco.
