Do I have a light problem?

[Planted Tank]

Hello,

We bought 2 kessil A360X Tuna Sun when starting our 75 gallons aquarium in April 2020. Since then we have been struggling with the schedule and intensity of the lights without any real success yet. Problems with plant growth and algae. If we increase the intensity we get algae on the carpet and also on the leaves if we decrease we have problem with growth and plants loosing their bottom leaves.

Water parameters are: PH 6.41 to 6.60, GH 4, KH 3, Nitrate 7, Phosphate 1, Iron .25.

We are injecting CO2 starting 2 hours before lights comes on and it's pretty constant at 35 till the lights turned off. We add Fertilizer (GLA) Macro 3.8 ml daily and Micro 7.6 daily 1 hour before light comes on.

The schedule of the lights is from 10 am to 8 pm with a varying intensity of 15 to 45 percent. The lights were at 8" above water level and recently put them back at 13" as original set up.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

 

[Forever Fishtank]

Nice tank. Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions re lighting, but I am following since I plan to buy 2 Kessils for my new 500L tank. I would love to hear other's opinions on how to tune the Kessils.

For what it's worth, I had exactly the same struggle with my twinstar lights on my ADA 75p. In my case, I had a vast range of plants ranging from annubias to Rotala Macandra. So I could never find an intensity that worked for everything. High enough light to turn the Rotala M bright red, caused the annubias, buces and AR Mini to be covered with algae. Low enough light to keep those happy caused issued with the Rotala and the other high light loving plants (with lower leaves dropping). I have since learned to curate my plant list much more carefully. Also, at high lights, my tanks became a lot more sensitive to water changes and filter maintenance. Even a tiny bit of increase in organic waste due to a dirty filter, overfeeding or dirt accumulating in low flow areas rapidly resulted in algae problems. With Kessils, you also have to take shadowing into account given that they are spot lights.

 

[Kezzab]

Hi, I'm not sure either, but are you absolutely certain about your co2? Ppm and flow?

I ask because in my own experience the losing of lower leaves has been definitely linked to insufficient co2.

 

[Planted Tank]

Hi,

I have two PH probes, one is at 6.41 and the other is at 6.47. If I use the aquarium CO2 calculator the CO2 should be between 30 to 35 ppm. I also have a drop checker with a reference solution and the color seems to be very close to the reference solution.

Thanks.

 

[Siege]

Ignore the co2 calculator, it is not very good.

Blowing the photo up, it is hard to see but the drop checker solution looks spent. It will be worth putting fresh in (make sure the drop checker is absolutely completely dry before adding liquid, otherwise a drop of water can kill the solution).

Move it round the tank.

On a 300L tank really should have the co2 coming on perhaps 4 hours+ before lights come on.

Adjust the lighting to whatever you like, just make sure it’s 8 hours max duration and co2 is spot on 👍

 

[Planted Tank]

I have check when to solution of the drop checker was changed and it was on January 7. How long should the solution last before changing it?

What should I target for PH if I have my KH to 3? Or should I rely on the drop checker and which green should be correct color?

Thanks,

 

[MattC]

I’ve just bought an older 360 for use on a tank I’m shortly setting up. Have done reasonable amount of reading on various forums about them which suggest setting them no more than 50% intensity for no more than 9 hours. Is that accurate?

 

[Forever Fishtank]

I’ve just bought an older 360 for use on a tank I’m shortly setting up. Have done reasonable amount of reading on various forums about them which suggest setting them no more than 50% intensity for no more than 9 hours. Is that accurate?

Wouldn't the intensity depend on the type of plants and the height of your tank? For example, you'd need higher intensity if you have a 90cm tall tank vs a 45cm tall tank since with the 90cm height tank, the light would have to reach a lot deeper. I'd also expect the intensity would depend on the height of the lights - i.e. how high are they from the surface of the water. The height from the water should depend on the width (distance form the front glass to the back glass) of your tank. The idea is that you should place it high enough so that the light cone (remember the light is a spot light) can reach both the front and the back of your tank. My reading suggests for most tanks, if you hang your kessil between 20 to 30 cms above the water, you should get sufficient coverage.

 

[alto]

On a 300L tank really should have the co2 coming on perhaps 4 hours+ before lights come on.

Are you certain on this?

I have very soft water (tap pH 6-6.4, KH 0-1, GH 1-3) and while I do occasionally add some mineral for shrimp in dedicated tanks, I’ve almost always run my planted tanks with just frequent water changes, lean Tropica Fertilizers, Tropica AS (previously Sera Flore Depot or Tropica Growth Substrate with suitable fine gravels), CO2 comes on ~30 min prior to lights, CO2 ranges 1-2 bps depending on aquarium size/plants/lighting
I don’t turn the CO2 on any sooner for my 90 x 45 x 55(h)cm aquarium than for my 60P
(shrimp 30cm cube just runs ~0.3 bps 24/7 as it’s difficult to adjust this precisely)

When I tried turning CO2 on 1-2 hours sooner, depending on aquarium size, I ended up gassing my fish, some recovered, some didn’t

FWIW that CO2/KH/pH Chart is actually reasonably accurate as long as the main/predominant buffering system is bicarbonate - see the Krib for many discussions on this (in articles plus exhaustive discussions - though perhaps many/some of those discussions occurred on the APD)

@Planted Tank what are tank dimensions?
I suspect that you’ll want the lamps at the higher distance for more even light distribution (especially as you’re at such low light intensity) - unfortunately it’s much easier to “see” the effects of light intensity/light distribution/light height when tank is dry and scaped (at night without any other room lighting)

In terms of light distribution, look at Sanjay Joshi’s light analysis (unfortunately Kessil requested their light data be removed after a couple years ... no idea why, the data made the lights look as good as they were/are), all aquarium lights - MH, fluorescent, CF, LED dense matrix array (LED quality and reflectors are everything), LED sparse (sorry I cannot think of the proper term that’s actually used) array - generate non-homogenous light distribution curves

I’ve not used the Kessil 360X but have run the older Kessil A160’s on various tanks - for plant growth, I run 100%
For non-photoperiod viewing, I run lamps at lowest manual setting and lamps swung to the back/side so it’s a moonlight effect

Obviously your algae is real but I suspect there are other contributing factors controlling the tank balance
(I’m the laziest aquarist I know and struggle to grow significant algae despite doing it all “wrong” ... I do adjust things when I see something needs doing, eg, tomorrow I’m going to get proper filters on the tanks I rescaped last week, Eheim Mini Up and Eheim 350 skim can’t run anything bigger than a 30C indefinitely )

More details on aquarium setup, maintenance, running parameters would be good

 

[aeneas]

Hi @Planted Tank, how is your situation with Kessils progressing? Stabilized growth/algae balance yet?

...I have a question I'd be very happy if you could help out with: I am considering the Kessils A360x for my new tank - I'd need 4 of them; but many people say their fans are actually quite noisy. What is your experience with them? Would you agree that when the room is quiet, fan noise is noticeable?