'In Reverie' My Rio 180 Journal

[aaronnorth]

170 watts T5 over a 45 gallon tank :?: You're getting exactly what is predicted for high light and sub-par CO2. You need to lose about 85 Watts and to improve the injection rate ASAP, otherwise this tank will soon have to be renamed "In Remembrance Of"...

Cheers,

If ceg recommends it, you'd better do it

I am surprised anyone would use this much lighting - a 2 x 54w T5 fisture would be plenty.

 

[glenn]

also, does any one know if an FX5 would fit in to one of these cabinets with out the parting inbetween the shelvs...they are prety much the same size as the EX1200 arnt they?
and what does "sub-par co2" mean?

 

[ceg4048]

what does "sub-par co2" mean?

Sub-par has three possibilities:
1) The injection rate can be too low so that the overall concentration level is below optimal.
2) The water turnover rate and/or the water flow distribution can be weak due to anemic filter/pump strength so that the CO2 cannot be delivered to the plants quickly enough.
3) The injection technique can be unstable or poorly timed such that the CO2 concentration level is high when it doesn't need to be and low when it should be high.

The gory details of the effects of sub-par CO2 implementation can be found in these threads:
Stable CO2 - What does it mean exactly?
New lights and new algae

Cheers,