Is My Lighting Ok

[kjb66]

hi i have a 48"X13"X12" ABOUT 26 UK GALLONS and i have 2x 48" arcadia freshwater tubes 36 watts each over the tank and another 48"tube not sure what this is it says aquabright 40 watt on it and it has a rediness to it now im thinking of changing this tube should i go for a different spectrum tube or get another arcadia freshwater tube.
I am using 2 nutrafin co2 plant systems and plants are growing well.I also now have all my dry ferts but i am not sure if im going down the EI route or PMDD route,my stats seem ok not sure about my nitrates do they need to be a little higher i have no algae its been and gone i hope.

nitrates under 5
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
kh 11
ph 7-7.2
i attached a not so good pic camera is from the dark ages

 

[zig]

You would want to start dosing pretty soon for nitrate, get your nitrates above 10ppm minimum and keep them there, you dont give a reading for phosphate, this is also very important, you need to buy a testkit if you dont allready have one and measure your tap and tankwater for phosphate, ideally a level of 10-1 nitrate to phosphate is required.

Pmdd is now considered old fashioned, it never took into consideration the importance of dosing phosphate which we now know does not cause algae and is an important macronutrient, without phosphate being present in some form for aquatic plants you will undoubtably get algae. When you dose pmdd you do not dose any phosphate. Also EI is better because you have control over each thing that you dose, NP and K, whereas with pmdd you dont have control over the individual constituent parts because it is all dosed together in one shot rather than individually like EI.

 

[kjb66]

I have a phosphate test kit on order at my lfs should be in the weekend .
I was going to do the pmdd method except add the potassium nitrate seperately according to test kit results,if i was going to go down the EI road i think i would premix the ferts rather than add them dry but the EI method does look a little more complex than the pmdd method also i do not have any monopotassium phosphate is there a rota i can use excluding this! the ferts i have are
magnesium sulfate
potassium sulfate
potassium nitrate
chelated trace element mix
If i do the EI method would i have no use for the magnesium sulfate, or would that be mixed in with the trace elements.The trace elements i have are from aqua essentials which contain maganese is this magnesium sulfate? can someone please advise me so i can get dosing the ferts
Oh and what about the lighting i mentioned in the first post should i change it?

 

[kjb66]

advice anyone?

 

[kjb66]

Oh well i got no response so i bought a interpet triplus and i mixed the ferts as follows with 300ml of distilled water
9grams chelated trace elements mix
14grams potassium sulfate
33grams magnesium sulfate
and im adding 3ml a day to start with to 112 litre tank

I mixed 84grams of potassium nitate to 500ml of distilled water which i will add a little more to the tank each day starting at 1ml which should be just under 1ppm until i reach 5-10ppm

I got my phosphate test kit and the results were beween 0.5-1ppm is this ok

could one of you great plant growing experts out there tell me if the things im doing are ok or not or offer me some much needed advice

 

[kjb66]

Advise me please