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Should I remove reflectors?

Sacha

Sacha

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Joined
3 Jan 2014
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992
Location
London
I have a Juwel Rio 125 using Arcadia Plant Pro J5 tubes (approximately 28W per tube = 56W total)

At the moment I have some Arcadia metallic reflectors.

I've been having some problem with brown diatomic algae, and with green dust algae (biofilm) and green spot algae on the front glass.

I've put the algae on the front glass down to the room receiving extra sunlight over the last couple of weeks.

Now, I've reduced my photo period to 8 hours. My question is, should I remove the reflectors too? Would this inhibit the algae growth, without hindering the plant growth?

If too much light is the cause of all our woes, why use reflectors in the first place?
 
With lots of light you need lots of nutrients as the plants demand it more, carbon, macros and micros

What plants do you have, what is your dosing regime and can you post a pic?

If it's a case of reducing light you could remove reflectors, remove a bulb or add fast growing floating plants I reckon
 
I dose 1.5X EI so nutrients and Co2 are in abundance (Co2 40 PPM).

Got plenty of fast growing plants in there, all I wanted to know was if removing the reflectors will help inhibit algae growth..

Photo:

duje5age.jpg
 
Hi Sacha, Tank looks great mate.

You could try reducing your light to six hours for a while. Is it a new set up? Diatomic algae can be a problem for the first couple of months.

Or, if you have 2 tubes try just taking one reflector off and maybe up the water changes?

Good luck, hope it's soon sorted,

Harry.
 
I find I often get diatoms for the first month or two after setup until the tank settles. I also only use a 7 hour photoperiod, so dropping to 6-7 hours as Harry said would also help. Removing the reflectors will have some effect, but you'll get better results long term just dropping by an hour or two (and save some electricity!) :p
 
Thanks everyone for the replies and thanks for the kind words about the tank!

Tank has been set up for a couple of years now. The diatoms appear at substrate level, so maybe it's not actually light related. But it's the GDA and GSA that I'm more concerned about.

So it seems like the best course of action is to keep the reflectors on and reduce the photoperiod to 7 hours. Thanks guys.
 
You can try to convert it into an open tank. The point is that you can put your light higher and higher if needed. It's like having a dimmer.

I got T5 48w (2x24w) over a 65 liters tank, not very much, isn't it? Now the light fixture is 45 cm above the water level as I mixed ferns and stem plants... at the beginning it was just 25 cm above the water, but I am not good enough to grow stem plants such as Limnophila aromatica with plenty of light without having algae issues with my low growing plants such as java trident or Anubias. Moreover I have a lot of wood and it is really a difficult hardscape to ensure a good flow, co2 and ferts distribution... Even if I have an inline diffuser, dosing 2x EI, adding a Koralia under my spraybar, work on my pH drop, etc. Nothing serious but some bits of starghorn on old leaves appear all the time.

Luckily having the possibility to move the lights higher let me control all this (not to get rid of all the starghorn, but I also want my Otos to eat something!) because all this has a common problem... you know the aquascapers management mantra "control your light, fix the right co2 and add enough ferts" ;)


Jordi
 
Almost of algae issues can be controling by do a water change....so dont forget that..

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk 2
 
Great, thanks for that Lee. I will reduce the photoperiod to 7 hours. If I still have problems, I will remove the reflectors :)
 
This is a CO2 and light problem. It's that simple. People always thing their CO2 and flow is good, but GDA and diatoms are smarter. They've been doing this for 4 billion years. When you see these problems it tells you immediately that something has gone wrong with CO2, and, having high light makes things worse. it doesn't matter how long the tank has been set up. I'd just do a massive trim to help distribution, check the filter for clogging and remove lots of media to help flow, do some massive water changes and probably do a 3 day blackout to kick the algae in the groin. It's really a very simple equation. The appearance of GDA means something seriously went wrong. As always, check the pH profile and see if it can be improved.

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
People always thing their CO2 and flow is good...
Click to expand...

That's my case lol... every time I make changes in my co2 and flow configuration I think that this is the definitive version, the good one, impossible to be improved... But once again, last night I re-scaped the wood in my tank to have a better flow, I made some changes in the spraybar position, I moved some plants. The lesson I have learnt (not always the easy way... This time I also had to trim all the background plants to the substrate to get rid of some algae on the older leaves, thus start from scratch) is that most of the times there is room for improvement and that algae don't lie.

Sometimes frustrating but it's is like this. Good luck Sacha :)

Jordi
 
Thanks Clive, I appreciate your help!
So, I will sort out my Co2 injection and distribution. Assuming that I manage to optimise the Co2 injection, should I remove the reflectors to discourage the algae, or will this just inhibit plant growth?
 
Well, algae love light more than plants do, so the best option is always to reduce the light intensity when possible. If that means removing a bulb or obscuring it somehow then that ought to be done. Removal of reflectors always helps.

Cheers,
 
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