Plants starting to die?

[Caliban07]

So this thread really got me thinking about everything I'm doing with my tank. Today I found my Anubias starting to brown and curl a little bit. The only way I can describe the way it looked is "burnt". So going back to the basics - when I first set up my tank, my basis was the age old wpg rule and it felt like the 2 T5 HO tubes that I have were the right choice for my low tech low light tank. But after Caliban's diagnosis of carbon deficiency, I started to think why that should happen in the first place. The simple answer is that I have way too much light. In following the links in one of the threads here, I calculate the PAR at 20 inches from the light source to be about 60. General guidelines I've come across suggest I can't have that much light without injected co2. So I plan to cut my light intensity in half by removing one of the T5s. This gives me a more manageable 30 PAR. I'll still dose liquid carbon but feel I have some room to experiment.

Any flaws you see here?


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Nope not from me. The only reason i a push carbon over less light is because the light has often just been purchased and no one likes to be told it's not fit for their goal and b) you can grow a larger variety of plants with more light and adequate carbon and c) obtaining enough co2 is the biggest challenge submerged plants face.

Everyone starts low tech. Some stay low tech because it fits in with their goals but others progressively add more light and want to keep a variety of different plant species in the same tank.

I've always said people have too much light. If you can provide enough carbon and nutrients and are happy with the rate of growth and can keep up with the demands of a high tech tank then great. But the first thing people tend to do is upgrade their light to 'plant lights' they don't even think about co2.

I think this is a good plan. ?

Edit: I include myself in all this too by the way.


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[Bert2oo1]

It's worth a go. As u say 60 par is medium light and if your anub's are tall then the par is going to be pretty strong up the top. I've had my tank running for about 2-3 months now and was running DIY on 100 par at substrate and All I've had is algae problems. I've since cut my light back to 80% and put in pressurised so hopefully once it balances out the algae will fade out.

As a beginner I didn't realise there was so much u needed to know about to be successful haha


30g planted, 90g Oscar tank

 

[plantnoob]

Tell me about it! Everyday I learn so many new things. My wife tells me she does not understand why all this is so interesting to me. She just wants a tank with beautiful fish!


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[Delapool]

[FONT=&quot]It does take a long time I find with planted tanks (and still annoys me the best one I ever had was a low tech tank I hardly every touched using bulbs I never replaced).

Adding CO2 injection - big difference here.

These were some text lines I pulled out on the glut dosing (from links):[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]http://www.seachem.com/downloads/articles/Carbon-in-the-Planted-Aquarium.pdf

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]general info[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2005/20050003.pdf

"These data indicate that both algae and fish embryos may be particularly sensitive to long-term glutaraldehyde exposure; however, this is predicated on whether glutaraldehyde concentrations will achieve high enough environmental concentrations and for a sufficient period of time to elicit such effects."

http://msdssearch.dow.com/Published...ides/pdfs/noreg/253-01817.pdf&fromPage=GetDoc[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Products containing <50% glutaraldehyde are not classified as dangerous to the environment and at the concentrations likely to be discharged (5ppm or less), are not detrimental to the performance of municipal sewage treatment plants.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Minnesota Fish Keepers Forum • View topic - Seachem Excel - solution of glutaraldehyde[/FONT]

Glutaraldehyde exhibits a very sharply peaked (nonlinear) effect on algae, starting at about 1 mg/L (or 1 ppm). In other words - using 1/2 the dose won't give you 1/2 the results, it won't do much of anything (at least to algae).

 

[Caliban07]

[FONT=&quot]It does take a long time I find with planted tanks (and still annoys me the best one I ever had was a low tech tank I hardly every touched using bulbs I never replaced).

Adding CO2 injection - big difference here.

These were some text lines I pulled out on the glut dosing (from links):[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]http://www.seachem.com/downloads/articles/Carbon-in-the-Planted-Aquarium.pdf

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]general info[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pubs/fulltext/2005/20050003.pdf

"These data indicate that both algae and fish embryos may be particularly sensitive to long-term glutaraldehyde exposure; however, this is predicated on whether glutaraldehyde concentrations will achieve high enough environmental concentrations and for a sufficient period of time to elicit such effects."

http://msdssearch.dow.com/Published...ides/pdfs/noreg/253-01817.pdf&fromPage=GetDoc[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Products containing <50% glutaraldehyde are not classified as dangerous to the environment and at the concentrations likely to be discharged (5ppm or less), are not detrimental to the performance of municipal sewage treatment plants.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Minnesota Fish Keepers Forum • View topic - Seachem Excel - solution of glutaraldehyde[/FONT]

Glutaraldehyde exhibits a very sharply peaked (nonlinear) effect on algae, starting at about 1 mg/L (or 1 ppm). In other words - using 1/2 the dose won't give you 1/2 the results, it won't do much of anything (at least to algae).

Nice pulls. I read algae effects start about 1.5mgl/l. The 8mls I put in my tank just blitzed the BBA on that was on a couple of Amazon sword leaves. Turned red after a day. No effect on shrimp or fish. Shrimp are berried in fact (this tends to happen when I let TDS rise)



The problem I find with planted tanks is that you really have to be aware that the tank is changing all the time. In high light co2 injection things change a lot faster and so you don't get a lot of time to adapt your methods and things can spiral quickly.


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[plantnoob]

Darn, my fixture will not work if I have just one t5 lamp. Got to run both. Guess I'll have to get a screen or something like that to reduce the light. I can't raise the fixture. Any other ideas?


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[Caliban07]

Darn, my fixture will not work if I have just one t5 lamp. Got to run both. Guess I'll have to get a screen or something like that to reduce the light. I can't raise the fixture. Any other ideas?


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inject co2 ?

I can't think of any other way off the top of my head. ?


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[Delapool]

Can't either I guess in theory an old bulb (at least 9 months) would of decayed in effectiveness but not sure on decay rate & spectrum shift / algae.

 

[Bert2oo1]

Can u replace the tube with a dim sunlight one? Might cut down the light abit.


30g planted, 90g Oscar tank

 

[plantnoob]

So after a lot of searching, I've landed on this solution.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000...1472440586&sr=1&pi=AC_SX200_SY289_FMwebp_QL65

So these are photo filters that reduce light intensity. They come in 20x24" sheets. So I've ordered 2 for my 48" tank. This is a "one stop" filter that cuts the light in half. There are others too, like a 1/2 stop filter that reduces intensity by 30%.

Anyway, it's a shame I can't just take out one of the lamps and save it for future. But my tank came with the fixture and now I'm stuck with it.

Anyway, I'll let you know how this works out!


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[Caliban07]

So after a lot of searching, I've landed on this solution.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000...1472440586&sr=1&pi=AC_SX200_SY289_FMwebp_QL65

So these are photo filters that reduce light intensity. They come in 20x24" sheets. So I've ordered 2 for my 48" tank. This is a "one stop" filter that cuts the light in half. There are others too, like a 1/2 stop filter that reduces intensity by 30%.

Anyway, it's a shame I can't just take out one of the lamps and save it for future. But my tank came with the fixture and now I'm stuck with it.

Anyway, I'll let you know how this works out!


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Great find. Very interested to see if this works.


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[plantnoob]

So it's done! I purchased a 1-Stop neutral density filter and stuck it to the glass top. This is supposed to cut light intensity by 50%, with par being cut in half to 30 at substrate. I'd say it definitely looks dimmer inside the tank. Here's a pic of the filter as I was cutting it last night.



It's pretty thin and easy to handle but crinkles if you're rough with it. Overall pretty happy with the solution, cost me less than 20 bucks. I'll post updates in a few days on how the plants are doing.


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[Sk3lly]

Another option is to wrap tin foil strips around the tube at various intervals. You can cover as much or as little as you like to lower light levels


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[plantnoob]

Another option is to wrap tin foil strips around the tube at various intervals. You can cover as much or as little as you like to lower light levels


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Good one! Would have been a simple option too. It may still come down to that if I feel I need to reduce light even more.


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