That to much light Really can mess things up even in highly monitored chemistry tank with co2 injection... Lost two fancy guppies. Because of my battle with algae which wasn't out of control but I wanted to address it before it got out hand and it was headed that way. I had the tank on a 10 hour total light cycle with 2 finnex II 7K led bars (my problems started when I upgraded to those) from the marineland led bars.
Did anyone come to the realization ?
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Brian_Nano12g
Aquarium Advice Addict
What size tank? 10 hours is a pretty long photoperiod with two Ray 2's. Algae is expected. Sorry to hear you lost fish.
35 gallon. Yes even with all the research I did still fell into the newbie trap.
I'm down to 8 hours and one bar. I think I lost the guppies because they were the inbred kinda so they couldn't take the constant .5 ph shifts. When I saw my PH go up while the lights were on IE co2 value open thats when I started thinking maybe I have to much light.. I've been running this for a day now and I can already see the hair algae they were starting to form on the plants a little is gone.-Kev
It is very do-able to run even very high lighting tanks successfully without algae issues. What happens is when you upgrade your lighting it throws your tank off balance and algae results. I can only run my very high lighting (metal halides) 6 hours. But I run the 4- 39w T5HO's 8 hours as that is very low lighting on my 220g.
Usually with higher lighting you have to use a shorter photoperiod. It also helps to have a ton of plants, preferably with a lot of fast growing stem plants. Then you have to get your CO2 and fert's dialed into the new light level since plants will grow faster with more light. It's a very fine line between balance and algae.
Usually with higher lighting you have to use a shorter photoperiod. It also helps to have a ton of plants, preferably with a lot of fast growing stem plants. Then you have to get your CO2 and fert's dialed into the new light level since plants will grow faster with more light. It's a very fine line between balance and algae.
bshenanagins
Aquarium Advice Addict
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I can surely agree to this lol
Yeah I went to one light 8 hours a day see what happens PH target is an even 7 it hovering around 7.1 from light off 7.2 at 1 bubble/3 seconds so I'm close. Get I'll get it stable then see how the plants do and where the algae goes. I was probably 3 weeks away from algae becoming a problem. Thanks for the advice.
Actually let me elaborate too. I checked Nitrates and Phosphates both at 0. Maybe because I left a nitrate/phospate media in the canister for way to long. Actually complete forgot about it. So my reasoning for the algae becoming a problem was just to much light. Is my logic correct ?
--Kev
It's not just too much light IMO but also no ferts as that will actually cause plants to fail and algae to get what little nutrients in the water. Plus to me that seems like a very low amount of CO2. I do 1 bps in the 55g with nano fish but in my big 220 which is 100% planted I do about 6 bps. I think you need to shorten your photoperiod, up you CO2, and get good macro and micro dry ferts going to raise your nitrate from 10-20ppm and phosphates from .5-2ppm.
I have eco 2 substrate with tabs. I move slow on ferts because of the inverts. The plants show great growth. Though but I think with all the light I was hitting them with and I bottomed out with nitrates that maybe they weren't out doing the algae as best they could. I think maybe I hit a lock point when I forgot about the media and the Algae was just winning slowly.
Real question is I have 7 degree dKH water in the tank up from 5 dKH a month ago I figure the dead snails shells breaking down. I have two assassin snails to keep the common pound snails in check. I use the CO2 charts to find the target PH. Could I have been thinking of it wrong should at least estimate the needs of my plants first ? I added two new plants too !
I can't say why your dkh is rising as there could be many reasons but most plants acclimate to your tank water just as fish do. Only a few plants such as Rotala Wallichii and Bolbitus prefer and grow better in soft water.
