220 Watts for 55 gallon aquarium?

[janek]

Hello Everyone:

My first post here. I just got into the planted aquarium stuff and although I had my 55 gallon aquarium for a while now, I recently purchased Coralife Freshwater Aquarium Light. It includes 4 65 Watt compact fluorescent bulbs and now I am thinking that based on the amount of plants I have (1 small glosso, 1 large sword, 2 bunches of ludwiga, 1 bunch of some other green plant and 3 java ferns) it might be too much light? I just put the light in today and have a very light fish load. 2 blue rams, 1 rainbow shark and 1 Chinese algae eater. I also us DIY CO2 injection. Prior to this I was using a 140 watt fluorescent lightbulb (for about 2 weeks) from Home Depot and the plants were doing ok but the setup did not look attractive. I am planning to get more plants (have about 8 bulbs floating that I dropped today). Should I stay with what I have? Maybe remove one of the bulbs on the side less planted? Or get some floating plants to lessed the light?

I am looking forward to your help.

Plant aquarium newbie.

 

[Buffalo Bill]

Welcome I also have a 55 gal tank with a coralife 260watt setup I think these lights make our tanks look awsome. For plant purposes the Actinic (blue light) does not count so that brings us down to 130 watts (2.36 watts per gallon) When I initially put my lights in I thought anything would grow with that much light but I soon found out thats not the whole story. After a couple of months some of my plants died and the rest were in very bad shape.
I just put in eco-complete substrate which is designed for plants as it has alot of minerals and other cool stuff in it. I also put in fertilizer pellets to help feed the root system. Now the plants are starting to make a comeback (after 1.5 weeks it is noticable). 8)
So I found out it takes more than good lights for great looking plants. Now that I've been bitten by the bug I'm going to get on the co2 band wagon (like you).... as we speak a pressurized co2 sys is on the way!!

 

[fish_4_all]

Welcome to AA. You have come to the right place to get you going in the right direction.

Well, to start with, your 130 watts is actually 175.5 watts giving you 3.2 w/g and already at medium light. That is if you have 2 50/50 lights. If not you have very high light and will need pressurized CO2. DIY could work but most say that a 55 will need pressurized.

Give us some more information, substrate, fertilizers you use, what you want out a planted tank, pH, KH, GH if you have tests for them. If not you will really need to get tests for them, and make sure you get a liquid test kit, not strips. Are they 50/50 bulbs or not? 1/2 daylight and 1/2 actinic.

Also remember the most important thing. Plants will take patience, sometimes more than other times but you really have to learn to watch your plants and treat them properly.

Buffalo Bill, this will help you a lot also as I can now grow almost anything in my LFS gravel and not using Eco Complete. There are very few plants that you can't grow without it but having it definately makes planted tanks much easier.

 

[janek]

Here is more info:

1. The bulbs are all 6700K bulbs (there are no actinic bulbs:
https://www82.safesecureweb.com/web...WAI&Product_Code=CL53116&Category_Code=CAFCFF
2. Substrate is mixed pure laterite mixed with flourite with some (not a lot) of small aquarium gravel on top)
3. Fertilizer: Seachem Flourish (comprehensive Plant Supplemet)
4. Tests: Mardel 5 in 1 test (nitrate ( a bit high..doin water changes almost daily (10% or so), nitrite (none), ph (hard) Alkanility/buffering (0-80ppm), PH (6.4-6.8)

The only thing that I think I messed up so far is not planting the tank with many plants from the start.

 

[gfink]

If you can turn on the bulbs seperately, then do that.
Example: I have 2x65W CF over my 29 gal. Having them both on would be A LOT of light!!
So, I have my front bulb on 12-8 and my rear on 3-11. So both are on between 3 and 8. Sort of like morning, noon, and evening.

 

[Purrbox]

Those test strips that you are using are notoriously inaccurate. You should consider replacing them with a liquid test kit. The AP Master Test Kit is quite popular for FW tanks and is relatively inexpensive. For a planted tank you would want to pick up individual kits for KH and Phosphates. Another popular one is the Hagen Nutrafin Master Test Kit which contains all the tests you would need but is a bit more expensive. I find Hagen's Nitrate kit a bit hard to read, but other than that I really like it.

The three main keys in a planted aquarium are Lighting, CO2, and ferts. Looks like you've got the Lighting covered. With DIY CO2 on that size of a tank you'll probably have troubles maintaining sufficiently high levels of CO2 unless you have lots of CO2 generating bottles and a very efficient CO2 diffuser. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches if your pocket book can afford to let you spring for pressurized.

As far as ferts go, you've only got Traces covered. I would recommend that you pick up the following from GregWatson.
Nitrates = KNO3
Phosphates = KH2PO4
Potassium = K2SO4
You may also want to consider picking up some CSM+B while your at it for when your Flourish Comprehensive runs out. Flourish products are very good and you can get the necessary macros but they'll get expense fast on that size tank.

Last, but not least, pick up a lot of fast growing stem plants. This will help increase your plant mass to a point where your tank can handle all the nutrients and help you to avoid an algae outbreak.

 

[malkore]

with that much light, pressurized CO2 injection is going to be a MUST HAVE item, and it'll set you back $150+ for a regulator and cylinder. diffusers can be cheap, free/DIY, or spendy depending on your choice.

DIY Co2 is rough on a 55gal to start with, let alone one with 4+ wpg of PC lighting...hence why I jump directly to pressurized. its worth the price.

 

[Zezmo]

I did do DIY CO2 for months on my old 55. Really at that size, the DIY is not consistant enough, and you can easily overdue the CO2 (dead fish) or underdue the CO2 (lots of algae)

As some have already said, you went ahead and jumped fully into the world of high light high tech tanks.

Read the stickies at the top of this forum, and then read them again to make sure you understand the information there....particularly about fertilizors.

You can not have too many plants, so yes get more plants. Each individual plant requires a certain light intensity to be successful. Fewer plants in the tank, does not mean you need less light. Even one plant that requires high light, means the whole tank should be high light.
Being as you have Glosso, you need all that light on.

260watts of quality Power Compact lighting over a 55gallon is 4.72 WPG.
Your substrate should be good enough to grow nearly any plant, the same is true of your lighting.

CO2, try DIY, to get you started, but plan to quickly go pressurized.
Fertilizors, Flourish comprehensive is a good choice for trace elements (micro nutrients)
You need to look into Macro Fertilizors (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium). There are stickes to guide you.

These are not a bunch of extra things you need, they are the rest of the things you need, based on your choice of light and plants.

Your Chinese Algae eater, and your Rainbow shark will not get along for very long. Plan on getting rid of one. (the Algae Eater - he will go agro on you)

 

[janek]

I spent quite a bit of money already on the light, plants, fish, tests and all the other stuff you get at the pet shop. Pressurized CO2 is just not an option at the moment. Maybe I should remove one of the bulbs then?

 

[Zezmo]

I saw your comment about not spending money on pressurized CO2 for now. In that case, go with DIY until you get the money for pressurized. For about $5 and an hour of effort you can have CO2 for your tank. Info on this method is in the stickies too.

 

[janek]

Zezmo:

I already have the DIY C02 injection, just not willing to buy teh pressurized...certainly not yet. My fish look ok (just got some killifish and basmati rainbows and like 30 ghost shripmp. As far as the plants are concerned, they look good giving of bubbles (usually late around 8 pm which is weird). Did not see bubbling in the morning because I wake up too late (teachers being off on vacation you know..lol). The plants look healthy, except for Amazon (top leaves are brown and yellow (were already befor ethe light came in), but the new leaves are beautiful green and sturdy. The gloss plants seems to not grow much, and I placed two microswords and a new healthy sword to see how they do...I guess now I just have to wait to see the results...with plants it takes soem waiting...when plants start really growing I plan to get better plants, a few more fish and better shrimp...for now I will just wait...

 

[src]

From what I have learned, you are running the risk of a serious algae problem with that much light and DIY CO2. If you don't back off on the light, just keep a very close eye on things.

 

[malkore]

and I wouldn't exceed 10 hours a day, unless you can reduce lighting by removing bulbs or if it has two switches, leaving one of them off.

 

[Zezmo]

Rainbow fish love to eat shrimps.
It really sounds like you are headed in the right direction with your tank.

You may sometimes get "advice" that is conflicting. This is because there is rarely one "right" answer. Instead there are many ways to be successful, most of us can only speak reasonable about the methods we have tried. The harder part is trying to speak to situations that are very different than ones you have tried.

Here is a picture from last year of my old 55gallon, it had 260watts of CF lighting, DIY CO2, and a HOB filter. As you can see, you can grow things like crazy. The only fertilizors used at that point were Flourish Comprehensive and weekly water chages.

http://webpages.charter.net/zezmo/June_22nd.jpg

 

[janek]

WOW Zezmo that tank looks incredible. I have a long way to go to accomplish that but hopefully with time it will get close to that. I am looking out for algae. As far as the rainbows they seem not to touch the shrimp but then again I just had them for 6 hours and they swim mostly in the upper lever area. I will wait until the aquarium starts showing good planth growth (hopefully soon) to get additional fish. I really liked the clown killifish and the patrizi killifish although before dishing out the money for them I will wait until I get everything going right.

By the way thank you to everyone in the forum. The more I read the posts and responses here, the more I understand what I should do.

 

[Plantbrain]

I spent quite a bit of money already on the light, plants, fish, tests and all the other stuff you get at the pet shop. Pressurized CO2 is just not an option at the moment. Maybe I should remove one of the bulbs then?

Yes, I'd do that and then getb a good inhternal DIY CO2 reactor, I posted some pics that are specific for DIY users trying to get the most out their DIY, you'll need tow of them and 2 x 2 liter bottles at a min.

If you are4 straped, you did spend a chunk on the lighting , you would be better off spending the $ on the CO2, selling the light, getting a coupe of cheap shiop lights for 160w on the tank.

That would serve you much much better, more light is most certainly not better.

There is no plant that needs 1/2 the light you have.

I have a nice rug of Gloss at 28" tank using plain o,ld normal FL's at 1.5 w/gal.

But I have ADA aqua soil and gas tank CO2 cranking.........and my electric bill is less than yours as is the algae issues you will have in the future

All the $ you have spent on plants and the tank will look poor if it's all covered in algae for most of the year.

Truthfully, few folks will tell you that buying gas tank CO2 is a bad idea, 99.5% are very happy once they do the plunge.
You do not realize it till later, I did DIY for a decade, so I know the issue well.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[janek]

The option is always to remove one of the bulbs I guess. The reason I did not want to go with a shop light is because I wanted the tank to look nice from the outside and the CoralLife lights are pleasing to the eye from a design perpective. Some say the pressurized Co2 is necessary, some say DIY is fine. I am going to wait a few weeks and see what happens. So far I cannot spot any algae anywhere and everything seems to be goin right. If I have to I will buy it, but I just can't justify the expense at the moment unless something goes really wrong.