Added lights

[carrcn]

I've got a moderately planted tank and rigged up some new lights. Went from 30 watts to 192 in a 55 gallon tank, now I've got algae growing all over my plants. I've got 8 otocinclus in my tank and they can't keep up. Not sure what kind of algae it is, but it's black, long, hairy and grows on my plant leaves. I added 6 32 watt, 48" T8 Lumichrome 1XX bulbs. 6500k, 98 CRI, 12 hours a day.

I've been doing btwn 25-50% water changes once a week, and adding Seachem Flourish once a week. I plan on cutting off the fertilizer to see if that helps with the algae and I'm also going to try dunking them in a 19:1 water/bleach mixture to see if that kills off the algae that is on the plants. But recently I've noticed some growing on the gravel in one section.

Do I need to add CO2 to effectively control the algae? Or do I need to add more plants? I'm working on adding more plants, but I've only got one fish store here locally, so it's kind of hard to get any kind of variety.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mrV]

What about other water values?

- pH?
- KH?
- NO3-?

192W / 55gallon, that's lot of light! First, reduce light. If you have timers, keep 3-4 hours break on day. It sometimes helps to get rid of algaes, because algaes need light to grow and they don't tolerate light-pauses.

 

[apisto_uk2]

Hi,

Okay.......the problem with algae is caused by excess food and nutrients in your water. Firstly you need to get some fast growing plants to out compete the algae for food. I once went down the adding masses of fertiliser route, but if you learn by my mistakes then you only need to add fertiliser occasionally. in my 125 Gallon tank I have 240Watts of light but my tank is about 22 inches deep. Also think about where you are placing what types of plants ? Ie plants like anubias and crypts dont require as much light as polysperma. Also, once you fing a couple of plants that like your water conditions then stick to them and let them out compete the algae first. Alos if your tank is newly setup then it typically takes atleast 2 to 3 months for it to settle down. From my experiences its all about getting the right balance. You can check out my tank if you like to see the plant results I get, it takes a while but eventually you'll get there.

Let me know as much info as possible and I'll help you out.

Good luck

Apisto

 

[carrcn]

PH is a bit high out here, but hasn't seemed to bother anything too much. It sits around 8-8.2. I've never even got a reading on ammonia. Can't remember which one, but the better of the two, nitrite or nitrate will get around 5ppm if I skip a week of water changing. I can't remember off the top of my head what the KH and GH are.

But the tank has been set up for quite a while, not yet a year, but over 1/2 a year. I'll have to look at my records to see when I first got it.

As for the lighting, I found a website with a formula to calculate your lighting, depending on what types of plants you have i.e. low light to high light. I'll get back to you on this when I find it again. I couldn't find it right away on the net, but I've got it printed at home.

But my lights are close to 24" away from the bottom of the tank, so that's where a lot of the wattage comes from.

I'm working on getting more plants, but there's only one local fish store here and I've already got a decent collection of everything they sell. Next closest store is about 100 miles away, so I don't get there too often. Might end up trying to order off the web.

I'll try to remember to grab all the info when I go home for lunch in a couple hours.

Thanks for the help.

 

[carrcn]

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5-10 ppm
GH - 6 degrees
KH - 6-7 degrees

The lights come from this formula I found on the web somewhere???:

Surface Area x distance from your lights to the top of the gravel (in inches).
Multiply this times one of the factors below:
0.08 low light plants
0.12 low to moderate light plants
0.18 moderate to bright light plants
0.27 bright light plants

This will give you the watt hours that you need. Divide this # by 11 and you will have the total watts needed for your lights. You're probably not going to find an exact match with the lights, but you can adjust it with the # of hours/day.

Ex: 48"x12"x24"X0.18=2488 watt hours (my lights are about 6-8" above the water surface)
2488/11=226.21 watts

Closest I can get with that is five 40 watt bulbs. So that is 200. Now divide 2488 by 200 and you get 12.44 hours. So five 40 watt bulbs need to stay on roughly 13 hours a day if you have moderate to bright light plants.

That's how I got to 192 watts. Instead of using 40 watt, I'm using T8 32 watt bulbs.

 

[apisto_uk2]

Hi,

Okay the lighting sounds about right, reckon you could get away with 160 Watt though.......I only got 320 Watts on an 8Ft tank 22 inches deep. Have you got any reflectors ? I would recommend using them.

I tries 200 watts on an old four foot fish tank I had but ended up having to reduce it to 160 to get rid of algae.

I know it's tricky, you need enough lights for plants but not too much to cause algae problems.

Has your water got ant tanins in ?

What is your planting substrate like ?

Good luck

Apisto

 

[Magnus]

Do I need to add CO2 to effectively control the algae?

Yes you do. With that much lighting, I'd worry about injecting CO2 before anything else. If you choose not to inject CO2, then lower the light level.

 

[carrcn]

I have no clue what tanins are???

My substrate is about an inch-inch and a half of nutrient enriched sand, then another inch or so of gravel on top of that. Once I added the nutrient enriched substrate, my plants started doing much better, even with the original 30 watts, which I knew was way too little. One thing at a time, though.

I eventually want to get the substrate heated, but didn't opt to this time. Maybe in a couple of years when I replace the substrate and have a place that I own. Probably get rid of the gravel at the same time and go with more of a sand bottom.

A question about the lights now. Apisto suggested I use reflectors, which I have thought about, but didn't know if they were necessary. Figured they're round, so the 32 watts that each one is producing is in a radial pattern, so I probably don't have a true 192 watts in the tank. But does it really matter? Wasn't sure on that one, so I left it for now and can go in later and add some reflectors if need be.

I also plan on putting CO2 in there, but I've got a couple more months of bill paying and then I'll be debt free for the first time since 1995, when I started college, so I'll be able to afford some of the nicer equipment. But I wanted to see if anyone knew of a simple way to at least cut down on the algae. I'll try some things suggested and work on the CO2 in a couple more months.

Thanks for all the help everyone.