Cohenjl13
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2017
- Messages
- 249
I spy bba and cyano on the substrate. Tell us all about the tank. Everything. More details, better we can help
Sorry it took so long but I wanted to get a picture of the tank so you could see. The 3 lights are spread across the top, do you think I should remove the middle light then?View attachment 309987
I have been saving to get new lights, the set up right now only works for GU10 bulbs so it’s hard to get 6500. Also on the far left top corner is a tiny black pump to help move the water. The main issue is how much algae is growing and the dam plants in the front were supposed to stay low lol.
Ps thank you for the complement! I have put much love into it!
nah not at all hard to find [emoji4] https://www.amazon.com/SODIAL-GU10-...TF8&qid=1533584632&sr=8-2&keywords=gu10+6500k
i did see the little pump in the corner. i used one just like that and i hated it. mainly because there isnt a way to make a prefilter for it and my snails would get in it and jam it. also the suction cups on mine were terrible. i would come in everyday to find it just flopping around in the corner of the tank.
Lol I don’t have snails and the shrimps stay away, I also have it jimmy rigged to stay.
I looked for DAYS trying to find a stupid 65k light lol I have some anger towards you!
Edit: Should I only get one now and place it in the middle? I’m worried it’ll look odd then
Those seeds are *NOT* carpet plants. I got rooked by that deal from Amazon, too. They grow up to be some kind of hygrophila species, most of the time. I've got one in my garage/growout tank that is now emersed about 15" tall and has side stems shooting off it. So *NOT* glosso!
That being said you can still trim those down if you want. They'll get bushier.
Low-light carpets are tough. You might get staurogyne to grow. Sagittaria willl grow in very densely given enough time to make lots of runners.
Lighting is a really really difficult thing to come to grips with. The kelvin rating, as far as I understand it, has more to do with how the light looks to us than which wavelengths are being emitted. There was a very comprehensive writeup in the Aquatic Gardeners journal last issue. Still broke my brain trying to comprehend those color-intensity plots. I'm so not a physics-minded person.
The practical way that I've tried to look at lighting for comparison is to look at the actual wavelengths that various types of chlorophyll absorb. Then compare that to what the manufacturer says the light puts out for wavelengths. If it's got the right spikes, then it's down to preference for K rating as that affects us more than the plants.
Keep in mind that I'm NOT saying Kelvin has nothing to do with appropriateness for plants. I am saying that in real life, per the Aquatic Gardener article, the same location will have various K readings throughout the day from our sun, changes due to weather, etc.
If you want a much more easily understood discussion of lighting, start with this: https://barrreport.com/articles/light-in-planted-tanks.48/
In my experience having used several different manufacturer's lights (mainland, BuildMyLED, Finnex, and MarsAqua), I get good growth no matter what. The differences are in what I can SEE -- how the colors in the tanks look and how the plants look under those lights. Fish, too.
Goatnad is right about 6500k being 'just like the sun' and is a commonly used way to approximate a 'good' light spectrum. I'm just not sure how much it -really- matters.
Advice on a way to remove it without causing to much of a mess?
Grab a stem and very slowly start pulling up on it and slightly wiggling it back and forth. Once the roots are slightly exposed cut them off. It will still make some mess but not something a good siphon and water change can't solve. Also if you have extra sand or gravel or whatever you used as a cap then pour a little more in on top of where the plants were to fill back in and cover the roots that were left. If you don't want to leave any roots then just keep pulling and shaking until the whole plant is uprooted. Its going to make more of a mess.
Grab a stem and very slowly start pulling up on it and slightly wiggling it back and forth. Once the roots are slightly exposed cut them off. It will still make some mess but not something a good siphon and water change can't solve. Also if you have extra sand or gravel or whatever you used as a cap then pour a little more in on top of where the plants were to fill back in and cover the roots that were left. If you don't want to leave any roots then just keep pulling and shaking until the whole plant is uprooted. Its going to make more of a mess.