Lighting/UV sterilizaton/Aquael Canister

[Digitalgerl]

First off, Hello to everyone as I am new to this site. I have been reading your posts and thought this site had the best posts and the most thought out answers.
I moved recently and had to re-set up my 37 gallon aquarium. My fish and plants survived the move fortunately.
As I could not get a bigger tank do to room <- our universal problem. I decided to "do better if not bigger".
I have a Satellite dual compact flourecents lights (total of 130 watts). A Hagen CO2 system. ...can you tell I have a planted tank? And I just purchased an Aquael 250 Plus canister filter with UV sterilization.
I have 3 angels (the mated pair just spawned) 2 polka dot cats, 1 betta, and 4 tetras. I have a moderately planted tank.
Here is my questions and I am hoping someone can help. Since this is basically a "new tank" since having to restart, Do I use the UV sterilization right away? for how long? I understand that it will kill algae and parasites along with bacteria - good and bad. I used the bio balls from my old filter to help seed the new canister filter with established bacteria.
MY lights and wattage for this size tank is correct I think. The bulbs are dual daylight 6500/10,000K for 130 watts. I also have a dual bulb that is Artinic but my understanding is that in freshwater tanks this is not needed as the plants don't use the blue light spectrum so I have not replaced one of the dual daylights with this.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Ph is 7.0
Kh is 5
medium water hardness
Ammonia, nitrite 0 per test kit
Thanks for any input that you can give

 

[happygirl65]

Welcome to AA! I have found this to be a very helpful place!

If I understand correctly you have a very high light tank. If the Hagen CO2 is the same one I have seen at the LFS for around $30 bucks, I doubt it will be enough...other more experienced folks can help you with this. I just added pressurized CO2 to my 46 gal with a lot of great advice from folks on the planted tank board.

You should check out the planted tank section here and read the stickies
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewforum.php?f=21

There is a lot of info there that will tell you about fertilizing methods, lighting, CO2 etc.

There are a lot of brilliant and helpful folks here. I don't have any exp with UV sterilizers, others may. I have been into planted tanks for less than a year so I am not the best to give advice but wanted to welcome you just the same.

You are right about the actinic bulbs, the blue actinic is not really usable by FW plants. You can use a 50/50 bulb though if you want to reduce your light level some.

Welcome again! AA is great, I know you will love it!

 

[Digitalgerl]

Hello, thanks for your reply to my post. I did read the "planted tank section". There are alot of beautiful tanks. I will check out the stickies next.
My fault on the Hagen - I have a HYDOR CO2 system with the cartridges and turbo diffuser. Seems to work -I have my pH down to 7.0 using this. I wish I could have gotten the larger tanks but budget wouldn't allow at this point.
I was worried about the type of lights. Now I know not to use the actinic-thanks.
As for the new set up and the UV sterilizer and when to use it- does anyone know? I am getting some algae on the side of the aquarium (not coming from any outside lighting source as no window) so I know I need to do something different. I will try to attach a pic of the tank.
Thanks again

 

[happygirl65]

First off let me say that your tank is really pretty!

I think the hydor CO2 should work great. I looked at that one too, but since I live so far from town (80 miles) I opted for the less maintenance of the 5lb tank.

I think if you post the UV question on the planted tank board you might get better response. I wouldn't see any harm to using the UV sterilizer as long as you have it. It would probably help you with your algae control. But one thing I have found is that in a newly set up tank algae will always be present and it takes a while to settle down.

When I had several kinds of algae in my tank at the beginning I had to add more plants that were fast growing nutrient hogs in order to finally get rid of it and I didn't have anywhere near the light level that you have. It was a pretty cool experiment actually because I planted one half of the tank really heavily with hygro and moderately planted the other half and over a few weeks all of the algae was gone on the heavily planted side.

After a couple of months you can remove some of the plants you used to help you get started. It is my guess that you have more nutrients than your plants can handle at the moment or something is out of balance. Different kinds of algaes mean different problems.
Is it green spots on the glass?

The other thing you can do is shorten the amount of time the lights are on. I found in my tank more than 10 hours resulted in lots more algae.

I would suggest adding some hygro, wisteria, and possibly asian ambulia. That is what I added and it helped a lot. I am sure there are plenty of plants out there that would help you with this, but many of us have this stuff and if you check out the plant exchange people can even send you some for the cost of postage when they trim their tank.

I would be willing to send you some next time I trim. I just set up another new tank though so I don't have anything just yet but probably will in a week or so.

Just send me a PM if you are interested in some hygro and asian ambulia.

 

[SparKy697]

Hello Digitalgerl and welcome to AA.

It sounds like you have most of what you need for your tank to start with. I did not see any mention of fertilizers in your post. You have a fair amount of light and are adding co2, ferts are the next part of the equation. Believe it or not the lack of nutrients with lots of light will help you grow a really nice crop of algae!

Are you feeding anything to your plants?

 

[Digitalgerl]

Hello,
Yes I did add some fert discs underneath the gravel but that was just a few days ago. If I were to add a liquid fert would it be filtered out by my canister filter? I figured after reading from this site that I would go with the discs but for reference it would be nice to know.

 

[Digitalgerl]

HI HappyGirl65 --thanks for all your input. It is greatly appreciated. That's a great idea to post my UV question in the planted tank forum. I will do that. My lights are on from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm. I will adjust the timer down to 10 hours as you mentioned and see how that goes.
Also I will put in a few more background plants. I think I like shopping for the aquarium more than for myself . So for now I will let the tank do its thing and just keep up the water changes. I replaced so many things at once when I had to reset it up that I got ahead of myself....lol
Thanks again!

 

[happygirl65]

Hello,
Yes I did add some fert discs underneath the gravel but that was just a few days ago. If I were to add a liquid fert would it be filtered out by my canister filter? I figured after reading from this site that I would go with the discs but for reference it would be nice to know.

Fert tabs are great for the roots of your root feeders. You can also add liquid ferts or dry ferts are what lots of us use (myself included)http://www.aquariumfertilizer.com/ is a resource for dry ferts that you can buy in bulk and save a bundle on.

 

[Digitalgerl]

Thanks ..I will check it out