Calculating watts per gallon

Sorry if this sounds dumb but when caluclating the watts per gallon for my discus plant tank would I include my actinics in the calculations? Presently on my 72 bow front I'm running two 65w 10ks and two 65w Actinics. Thats 260w total. If I combine the wattage from both, that gives me about 3.3wpg and should be o.k but if I only count the 10k's then it drops to 1.7. It may also be why I have an algea problem. Personaly I think I'm underlighted and I was going to swap out the actinics for two more 6500k's or 10k's. Any info or thoughts appreciated. Oh, I do have a Co2 system and run it at 1.1 bps.

change out the actinics to some daylight's like 6500k's. Actinics are for corals, not plants.

What Wahter said. Do it.

Did :) . Pulled out the actinics and replaced them with two 65w 6500k's about 15min ago ;) . Also, didn't even notice that the two other bulbs in the fixture where 1200k's. So now there is two 65w 6500k's and two 65w 1200k's in the fixture. Is that o.k ??? Tank does look way better now and more natural too.

Without getting into to much detail. Having that much light means that alot of attention to detail will have to be maintained.

1. You need alot of plants.
2. You need to fertilize the plants just right (EI).
3. You will need to get the c02 ppm to at least 30 ppm consistantly.

If you are having algae issues, one or more of the above 3 are not being met.

I personally would have stuck with the 1.7 wpg you had (under 8 hours) until your algae issue was resolved. JMO

Mark

Personaly I think the low WPG was my problem. After two days with the new lights I can see root and leaf growth where there was none before. Now i just need to get timers for my lights so I can controll the amout of light the plants get while limiting the light the algea needs to grow.

Baystalker is right,you need fertilization and CO2 to get rid of the algae.I removed the actinic bulb, but color spectrum is minor if you dont have the other two factors right.

Have beeb using fertilizer and have been running Co2 for about a year. Without proper lighting though how does the plant convert the Co2 or fertilizer to growth??

Here is a good web site to answer your questions.

http://www.aquatic-plants.org/articl...es/04_co2.html

Mark

Mark that is a great site one I had not seen and came at a good time as I am setting up my 45 too be low tech. I am finding it harder to do than the high tech 90. thanks Ed