Hi first post so be gentle!
I have an 80 litre BOYU tank that was lit with a single PLL 24w Daylight tube like this:
PLL Compact 24W 865 daylight 2G11 4-pin — Light bulbs, LED bulbs, halogen lamps, spot lights and tubes
I used to grow Crypts and Anubias pretty well dosing an all in one feed and liquid carbon daily and lights on 7hrs per day substrate is Eco Complete. Any plants I tried requiring higher light levels always seemed to struggle (they looked drawn). I wanted to increase the range of plants I can grow so have installed another similar tube effectively doubling the lighting. Owing to hood design I was limited to what was possible so I hoped this was a good option. I have access to a PAR meter which is unfortunately not waterproof but I took a reading at substrate level without water and got a reading of 50mmol (it was 24mmol on one tube). I've also added a F.E Co2 system with solenoid on a timer, its taken a bit of adjusting over the past 10 days or so but I seem to be in the lime green zone now on the drop checker and it appears to stay there constantly. The uprated system has been running 14 days and I'm starting to notice algae (green and hairlike) on plants and bogwood, currently planting is quite sparse. I 'm still dosing just the all in one plant food but thinking I should start E.I. Is this the right way to go and should I go back to just one tube for a while before the algae takes over?
Cheers
Russ
I have an 80 litre BOYU tank that was lit with a single PLL 24w Daylight tube like this:
PLL Compact 24W 865 daylight 2G11 4-pin — Light bulbs, LED bulbs, halogen lamps, spot lights and tubes
I used to grow Crypts and Anubias pretty well dosing an all in one feed and liquid carbon daily and lights on 7hrs per day substrate is Eco Complete. Any plants I tried requiring higher light levels always seemed to struggle (they looked drawn). I wanted to increase the range of plants I can grow so have installed another similar tube effectively doubling the lighting. Owing to hood design I was limited to what was possible so I hoped this was a good option. I have access to a PAR meter which is unfortunately not waterproof but I took a reading at substrate level without water and got a reading of 50mmol (it was 24mmol on one tube). I've also added a F.E Co2 system with solenoid on a timer, its taken a bit of adjusting over the past 10 days or so but I seem to be in the lime green zone now on the drop checker and it appears to stay there constantly. The uprated system has been running 14 days and I'm starting to notice algae (green and hairlike) on plants and bogwood, currently planting is quite sparse. I 'm still dosing just the all in one plant food but thinking I should start E.I. Is this the right way to go and should I go back to just one tube for a while before the algae takes over?
Cheers
Russ
first of all which all in one plant food are you using? You give us no indication about it, some plant foods in the market usually just contain micro nutrients. E.I. will ensure you providing all necessary. Increasing the lighting is most likely the source of the issues, you should have not done that until your dosing and CO2 was setup adequately, so for now turn off the extra bulb, perform water changes at least twice a week for the next couple of weeks and let us know which all in one you are using.
no wonder the algae kicked off....