my 75 gal. lightly planted tank.:)

[walt3]

hello. this was a more densely planted tank until i got attacked by hair algae and pulled a bunch of plants.:( it might be a better change as the tank looks bigger and they have more room to swim. thoughts on the layout are welcome. i think the algae is going away at the moment. pain in the rear! happy tanking! walt. having trouble formating my pic. sorry . can anyone give advise?. walt

[lipadj46]

pain in the rear! happy tanking! walt. having trouble formating my pic. sorry . can anyone give advise?. walt

upload the pics to photobucket then copy and paste the html IMG code into your post. As far as the bba goes you have an imbalance probably too much light and not enough ferts and/or CO2. Give some more details on equipment, photoperiod and fert routine.

[walt3]

i think you are right. i used to have 5.2 watts per gallon and was just doing diy yeast co2 and really no ferts at the beginning. makes sense now. :( i have taken approx. 130 watts off the tank and i think that should help. i dont have the cash for a proper co2 so it may be awhile for that. question... can i still fert without co2 and avoid algae? thanks for all the help. is it worth diy yeast? i was getting crazy pearling with the diy by the end of the day with the original watts and the plants were growing very fast! but then the algae started and crushed my dream tank :( thanks! walt. i was running my lights for 12 hrs.ehiem 2217. started to lightly dose flourish. as directed on bottle 2 times a week.

[lipadj46]

HA! that must have been bright. Is your light T8, T5 NO or T5 HO? For low tech you should be fine with 130 watts of normal output light with a reasonable photoperiod (4-8 hours). DIY CO2 in a 75 gallon can be a pain, lots of sugar and mess. You may be better off getting some osmocot plus and gel caps (or buy some good root tabs) and fertilize the substrate and also use excel and adjust your photoperiod accordingly, growth will be slower but algae will be gone. Fertilizing the water column can be tricky if you don't have enough CO2. What many do is use the estimative index fert routine and essentially overdose, blast CO2 and make light the limiting factor. This is great for plants but for fish not so much.

[walt3]

my lights are compact flourecent. i have a total or 650 watts! they are what i had on my reef tank. im only useing a total of 260 watts at the moment. funny how i struggled to grow certain corals with them and now its way too much. especially for a dim lit amazon tank. i had 130 watts at first and looked very amazon but couldnt really see the tank. added more light so i stopped at 260 now. i guess i need to set up another tank with all my unused light laying around. ;) the wife would kick my rear end though. my basement feels like a jungle even with a dehumidifier. crazy! 75 gallons of 88 degree water in a small space will do that i guess.

[PC1]

A 75 gal is tough to have a diy co2 it will prob be tough to keep co2 levels up on a tank that size. At least when it gets cold all you'll have to do is go downstairs to be in the tropics. Paint a sunset and some palmtrees on the walls and your good to go.