trojannemo
Fishaholic
hey guys.
I expect supercoley1, colin_t, and aaronnorth (sorry for mispellings) to reply to this post as you three were the ones i spoke with mostly last year. anyone else is welcome to reply too please!
to remind you guys, my tank is 38 us gallons, eco-complete substrate 85% mixed with 15% regular black gravel. water is at 80F, 7.5 ph, fully cycled tank.
i dose all the SeaChem Flourish products, following the EI dosing method, with rest day on saturday and big water change on sundays.
no pressurized CO2, only two DIY bottles with individual air stones at opposite sides of the tank. due to spacing issues I decided to forego pressurized CO2
until I move to a bigger place.
all our conversations last year were about trying to fix my algae issues and poor/stunted plant growth stemming from too high light without
pressurized CO2. my previous fixture was a Hagen Glo which had 2x 39W T5-HO bulbs. based on the recommendations you all gave me
I finally sold that system and downgraded to a Marineland Perfect-A-Strip 30W T8 fixture. i hate it, simply because it's very very dark
compared to my superbright system that my eyes adjusted to over the period of more than a year.
anyways, to the point of the thread. before i had 78 watts of T5-High Ouput lighting. Now I have 30 watts of T8 lighting. as I said before,
it looks very dark to me. However, in the two weeks or so that I've had it, i've noticed amazing changes. my two
tiger lotus shoots have ballooned, not only putting out new leaves but also growing quickly. My anubias nana shot out 3 new leaves,
after months of never changing at all with the previous system. all of the new leaves are algae-free, and all the old algae is going away.
my river rocks used to be covered in brown algae, they're almost algae-free. and my java moss had some brown areas that are now
all super green. so i can't say that the lowered lights with DIY CO2 isn't working...
what i want to know is if I can get away with adding a second one of these systems. simply because I want visually more light.
that would mean 60 watts of T8 light, versus 78 watts of T5-HO light I had before. would 60w of T8 be too much for the two DIY CO2
bottles? or can I get away with that extra bit of light? or should i just deal with it and stick with the dim lighting I have now?
thank you for your help guys, i really appreciate it!
I expect supercoley1, colin_t, and aaronnorth (sorry for mispellings) to reply to this post as you three were the ones i spoke with mostly last year. anyone else is welcome to reply too please!
to remind you guys, my tank is 38 us gallons, eco-complete substrate 85% mixed with 15% regular black gravel. water is at 80F, 7.5 ph, fully cycled tank.
i dose all the SeaChem Flourish products, following the EI dosing method, with rest day on saturday and big water change on sundays.
no pressurized CO2, only two DIY bottles with individual air stones at opposite sides of the tank. due to spacing issues I decided to forego pressurized CO2
until I move to a bigger place.
all our conversations last year were about trying to fix my algae issues and poor/stunted plant growth stemming from too high light without
pressurized CO2. my previous fixture was a Hagen Glo which had 2x 39W T5-HO bulbs. based on the recommendations you all gave me
I finally sold that system and downgraded to a Marineland Perfect-A-Strip 30W T8 fixture. i hate it, simply because it's very very dark
compared to my superbright system that my eyes adjusted to over the period of more than a year.
anyways, to the point of the thread. before i had 78 watts of T5-High Ouput lighting. Now I have 30 watts of T8 lighting. as I said before,
it looks very dark to me. However, in the two weeks or so that I've had it, i've noticed amazing changes. my two
tiger lotus shoots have ballooned, not only putting out new leaves but also growing quickly. My anubias nana shot out 3 new leaves,
after months of never changing at all with the previous system. all of the new leaves are algae-free, and all the old algae is going away.
my river rocks used to be covered in brown algae, they're almost algae-free. and my java moss had some brown areas that are now
all super green. so i can't say that the lowered lights with DIY CO2 isn't working...
what i want to know is if I can get away with adding a second one of these systems. simply because I want visually more light.
that would mean 60 watts of T8 light, versus 78 watts of T5-HO light I had before. would 60w of T8 be too much for the two DIY CO2
bottles? or can I get away with that extra bit of light? or should i just deal with it and stick with the dim lighting I have now?
thank you for your help guys, i really appreciate it!
