Help With Live Plants

[antb1983]

hi guys.

i had my tank set up for a few months now and previously posted a topic about high nitrates. with varied plans of action the problem is better but still not resolved so i have put in some live plants to help the process and i was just wondering how long i should leave my light on per day. the tank gets some natural light in the afternoon if its sunny so not sure how long it should be on for. for the past 3 days it has been on for 4 hours a night but one of the plants seems to be turning a little brown. is this because the light is not on long enough? i dont want to leave the light for very long periods as to not feed the algae anymore that will grow in my tank.

thank you for your help
ant

 

[craig855s]

8-12 hours, i have mine on for 8 and i only have a few pieces of greenery (3 moss balls,some java moss,leopard amazon sword and anubia..and some thing that is dieing)

I dont know what the solution to an algae problem is...but just having a short photoperiod wont do it

 

[antb1983]

thanks. i think if i have my light on for that long i will be overun with algea at the moment. will the plants make alot of differance to the nitrate levels? do i still have to do 40% weekly water changes? if i continue to have my light on for 4 hours a day will it kill my planks because there not getting enough light

 

[OldMan47]

You will still need to do weekly water changes, even if the plants were able to hold your nitrates at 10 ppm by themselves. The water change has a lot of benefits besides controlling nitrates.
A typical approach to lighting is to start with a short time period, maybe 6 hours, that includes the time that natural light is getting into the tank. If you don't get overrun by algae, you can extend it to 7 or 8 hours. I have all of my lights on a timer so that it can be quite regular in time period and time of day. Since few of my tanks get any natural light, I set the timers to shut off around the time I go to bed and set them to come the desired amount of time earlier. With lights going off at 9 PM I have them all come on between noon and 3 PM depending on the tank and the particular plant's needs.

 

[antb1983]

thanks oldman47. i will set my light for 6 hours daily to start and see if the plants survive ok and hope i dont get anymore algae growth. it seens to stand out more because we have white ornaments, maybe its time to change to browns and dark greens as they are becoming increasing diffecult to keep looking nice.

thanks agen

 

[waterdrop]

Some rooted plants will die back completely after you get them, leaving only the roots and crown but this is normal and they will then grow back into a new plant, given good conditions.

Unfortunately, for many plants, when they get brown, there comes a point of no return and its not good to be getting the increase in ammonia that will occur as they decompose. For strongly rooted plants this may mean trimming away all the bad leaves whereas for some stem plants, the whole plant may need to be tossed.

Light, Nutrients, CO2 and algae are the 4 skill areas of aquatic plants and I agree completely with OM47's comments about working with your lighting hours. I too use timers and have a morning photoperiod followed by a long dark period when we're usually gone from the house and then a longer photoperiod from late afternoon into the evening, when we most enjoy the tank. My light is down around 1 watt/gallon (what we call a "low-light" approach) and I dose liquid carbon (as a substitute for CO2) daily and light nutrients on a schedule throughout the week, followed by a 50% gravel-clean-water-change on the weekend along with cleaning any algae from the glass etc. whether I can see any or not.

Besides having a good solid biofilter that's trying to keep the ammonia as low as possible, water circulation is the other major factor (well, other than light, which will help the algae no matter what if its too high and/or on too long) and sometimes the filter flow needs to be aided by some other extra water mover. Once you've got a particular algae, the battle against it must be done in an "algae-type" specific way.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[aaronnorth]

8hrs is the usual length. Some start off wth 6hrs and raise it slowly. some have 10hrs because they prefer to see more of the tank for longer, anything above 10hrs becomes unecassary and algae usually starts to develop

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