Feeding Questions / Issues

[Katch]

65 watts of lighting is a bit high for your tank.

Your tank is a 29 gallon tank which gives you a watts per gallon of 2.24. Ideally you want 1 watt per gallon maximum 1.5 in order to prevent massive algae growth. If your hood has 2 tubes in I'd take one out.

 

[Zhent]

Unfortunately it's only got the one tube in it. I know it is a little bit more light than would probably be ideal without some more equipment, but at only the ~2 WPG level I was hoping that regular dosing of excel and nutrients into the water, combined with the eco-complete, would cover the additional lighting.

Coralife 30" 65Watt CFL LightStrip

That's what I am currently using.

 

[waterdrop]

LLJ, Dave and all the planted folks have a more experienced feel for how all the non-linear variables play with each other than me but my simplistic idea of it currently would be that somewhere between 1 and 2 w/g is often where the carbon contribution of a liquid carbon will stop being able to supply some species with enough carbon nutrient. As soon as any one nutrient becomes unavailable within the plant machinery, growth shuts down and the leftover nutrients in the water become available to algae, assuming there are algae plants present from algae spores that have been triggered by light and trace ammonia. My feeling is that for some light sources and tank sizes, this limit is closer to 1 w/g than 2 w/g but of course its complicated.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Zhent, the 3 females to each male makes lots of sense in my tanks, but I am a keeper of livebearers. For the typical egg layer like your gold barb, roughly equal numbers work out fine.