Too much light?

[Yassmeena]

I need to determine if I should swap my T5HO for stock lights.

I had a planted tank which is now BB. It's a 72 gallon, and right now the lights are 2x54W T5HO left over from the planted setup.

In the BB I have a pot with 2 amazon swords and a couple crinum thaianums. I also dose a bit of excel every day to help them grow. However, the glass develops algae and needs a throrough wipe down every day. It's becoming a pain!

Would my stock lights that originally came with the tank be enough to support the growth of the swords and c. thaianums?

Also, any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Yasmin

[Eddie]

Hey Yas, why not just pull one bulb out? Also, what is the spectrum of each bulb?


Eddie

[Darrell Ward]

Yes, that's too much light IMO. I agree with Eddie that the easiest fix is just unplug one of the bulbs.

[waters10]

Hey, Yasmin. How's it going?

Does your light fixture have individual reflectors? The reason I'm asking is because I have a 3x54w T5HO from Catalina and even 1 bulb on for more than 6 hours/day would give me a ton of algae on my 85g ... This was when I had anubias, a lot of neddle leaf java fern and some moss covering my manzanita wood.

I've added more plants recently and now I'm using 2 bulbs at the same time.

PS. Sent you a PM about loaches ...

[Yassmeena]

Hey Yas, why not just pull one bulb out? Also, what is the spectrum of each bulb?


Eddie

Hi Eddie,

My setup is kinda annoying in that pulling out one bulb causes the other one not to turn on. It's a Nova Extreme...

Spectrum, hmmm... what units is that? I know the Kelvin rating is 6k.

Thanks for responding,

Yasmin

[Eddie]

Hi Eddie,

My setup is kinda annoying in that pulling out one bulb causes the other one not to turn on. It's a Nova Extreme...

Spectrum, hmmm... what units is that? I know the Kelvin rating is 6k.

Thanks for responding,

Yasmin

I'm sorry, yes, Kelvin rating. Some fixtures come equipped with a 10K and then another lower K rating. I was gonna say to pull the 10K if you had one. Sucks you can't run one by itself. :(

Eddie

[azrean]

the algae will still grow it needs less light then plants. either get more plants or get algae eaters.

[Yassmeena]

I'm sorry, yes, Kelvin rating. Some fixtures come equipped with a 10K and then another lower K rating. I was gonna say to pull the 10K if you had one. Sucks you can't run one by itself. :(

Eddie

Right? What a annoying feature!




the algae will still grow it needs less light then plants. either get more plants or get algae eaters.

But it will probably grow less?

I have some albino BN plecos and amano shrimp in QT right now. This weekend will be time to add them, so I'll give them a chance first.

On the whole idea ab algae still growing in stock lights... The QT has the same plants and they are growing without algae.

Hopefully I figure out a way to keep algae at bay. It's so unsightly and such a pain to clean!!!!!!

Yasmin

[diamond_discus]

Yasmin :

Your BN Plecos should be able to clean your algae. I have a Nova Extreme 48W T5 for two of my 40 gallon tanks. (1-24 W 10,000°K, 1-24 W Freshwater). Seems to work fine for me. I only have one BN pleco in each tank. No algae so far.

-Larry

[Eddie]

Yasmin :

Your BN Plecos should be able to clean your algae. I have a Nova Extreme 48W T5 for two of my 40 gallon tanks. (1-24 W 10,000°K, 1-24 W Freshwater). Seems to work fine for me. I only have one BN pleco in each tank. No algae so far.

-Larry

Just to point out, algae growth has alot to do with water composition as well, not just light.


Eddie

[diamond_discus]

Just to point out, algae growth has alot to do with water composition as well, not just light.


Eddie

Agree ... Eddie ...

BTW, those two tanks that I have are barebottom, and I do "100%" WC every other days.

[Darrell Ward]

Yasmin :

Your BN Plecos should be able to clean your algae. I have a Nova Extreme 48W T5 for two of my 40 gallon tanks. (1-24 W 10,000°K, 1-24 W Freshwater). Seems to work fine for me. I only have one BN pleco in each tank. No algae so far.

-Larry

The BN Plecos in my discus tanks have grown fond of discus food, and think they are above sticking to the tank walls looking for algae. It's a good thing I don't have a problem. :)

[Yassmeena]

I added the BN plecos and about 10 amano shrimp 3 days ago.

The algae on my walls is gone, but my poor plants continue to have algae on their leaves, and it is getting more prominent. In addition, I think I had/have a mild case of green water. I switched to stock bulbs today out of desparation. :(

Unfortunately the WPG is now significantly less, so I am not sure if my plants will thrive in these conditions either. Strangely, these same T5HO lights worked just fine when I had sand and more plants. I had no algae or green water at that time.

We'll see what kind of equilibrium is reached.

Grrrrrrr.........

Anyway, just my update.

Best,

Yasmin

[underwaterforest]

I added the BN plecos and about 10 amano shrimp 3 days ago.

The algae on my walls is gone, but my poor plants continue to have algae on their leaves, and it is getting more prominent. In addition, I think I had/have a mild case of green water. I switched to stock bulbs today out of desparation. :(

Unfortunately the WPG is now significantly less, so I am not sure if my plants will thrive in these conditions either. Strangely, these same T5HO lights worked just fine when I had sand and more plants. I had no algae or green water at that time.

We'll see what kind of equilibrium is reached.

Grrrrrrr.........

Anyway, just my update.

Best,

Yasmin

If you have the money Yasmin a UV light will solve most of your algal problems. I wouldn't want to be without one on my high light tanks. Just plumb it on the output of your filter or get a standalone pump to drive it (standalone is better because it allows you to control the contact time). Somebody was mentioning here that ebay has rip off turbo twists for 40 bucks.

[waters10]

One thing you could do is raise your fixture. Light intensity decreases a lot with distance. Even a couple of inches makes a lot of difference.

Search plantedtank.net for some info on Photosynthetically active radiation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radiation). Basically, wpg is not the way to measure how much light you have on a tank. Check this thread (http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/lighting/97622-par-data-selecting-t5ho-light.html) to see how distance affects PAR. And check this one (good info starts at post#17) (http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/lighting/85667-par-data-spiral-power-saver-bulbs-2.html) to see how a lot of other factors play a role on PAR measurements. I've bookmarked these two threads after finding a lot of good info on them. You can search for some Tom Barr's posts as well, detailing how a lot of Amano's tanks don't have as much light as people think.

And UV won't help with algae on the leaves, but should solve the green water problem.

Hope this helps.

[underwaterforest]

And UV won't help with algae on the leaves, but should solve the green water problem.

Hope this helps.

True, but UV will keep it from spreading as fast and having a good algae removal squad will complete the equation (SAEs, shrimp, ottos, etc). I find I don't have to run UV all the time to get rid of most of the algae, and can use it in bursts to keep the algae under control. But running it 24 7 will make sure that the algae doesn't grow (at least in the water column).