Photoperiod

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itafx

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 19, 2007
Messages
405
Location
Virginia
I want to see the tanks when I'm home from work, but I'm working withing an 8 to 10 hour /day lighting limit in order to fight algae. I've settled on a photoperiod that has 3 hours in the AM, then a very long siesta with no lights, and then 6 or 7 hours of light after I get home from work. It seems to be working ok. The fish do fine, but I don't know about the plants. Anyone tried this or have suggestions?
 
In general. There should be no issues with that.
If you run CO2, you might cause some CO2 bounce, if it goes off in between. If running a Ph controller, then def no issues. Also, if no CO2, or CO2 24/7 then no issues.
 
I'm using a timer which makes the times easy to control. I'm not using CO2. I am somewhat concerned about too much surface agitation reducing CO2, so I put baffels in front of the Emperor outputs to help with that, but I'm also concerned about too little water flow encouraging BGA. I have the filter on a timer at 50-75% duty cycle.
 
If you are not injecting CO2 then creating surface agitation will HELP keep your CO2 at an ambient 3ppm or so. I would remove the baffles and let the filter run 24/7. Are you seeing any algae starting to crop up?
 
i second what dapellagrini says. increase surface agitation if you are not injecting co2, and definitely keep your filter on all time! there's no reason to turn it off.
 
Yes, you do want surface agitation. The "still surface" is only a goal if you have DIY CO2. With pressurized, you crank up the CO2 to compensate. With no CO2 it keeps the CO2 levels constant.
 
Ok. I think I get it. Injecting CO2 makes it higher than atmospheric levels; the plants use CO2, so if we're not injecting CO2, then we need agitation to keep getting the CO2 into the water from the atmosphere and keep it from being depleted to even lower levels than atmospheric due to the plants using it up. Right?

I am having issues with BGA, but with an Emperor 400 on a 29 gal and an Emperor 270 on a 10 gal with fry, I'm concerned about wearing the fish out by having too much flow of water current, so that's also a reason for the baffles.
 
Ok. I think I get it. Injecting CO2 makes it higher than atmospheric levels; the plants use CO2, so if we're not injecting CO2, then we need agitation to keep getting the CO2 into the water from the atmosphere and keep it from being depleted to even lower levels than atmospheric due to the plants using it up. Right?

Bingo!

Are both tanks planted? You can reduce the flow by putting a sponge pre-filter over the intake. This will also save the fry from being sucked onto the intake. You will need to clean the sponge regularily as it will hold particles instead of them going where they should.
 
Both are planted. I'm using a 50 micron felt pad over the intake in the fry tank. I take it out and hose it off every few days.

BTW, I have a Melon Sword plant in the 20 high fry tank. It was really nice at first, but over a month or 2, the leaves spread out so instead of growing mainly up, they grow almost flat with the substrate and cover a 12+ inch diameter so nothing else can grow in 1/2 of the tank. Is there any fix for this, or is the Mellon Sword just a bad plant for smaller tanks?
 
I've had a very hard time finding good timers. Most I've tried have been unreliable, inaccurate, have too few settings, or have the plugs too close together. All have had the plugs too close together. I finally found one that does a good job. It's analog, but has 96 15 minute settings can be turned on or off manually for an override, and has 4 timed plugs and 4 always on plugs. It has a circuit breaker on/off switch too. The settings are easy to do and I haven't had any problems with it so far. It's the American Tack & Hardware Daily Segment Timer. Lowes is the only place I've found it and you can get it in their store or online.
 
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