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Lighting trouble? You tell me!

2K views 18 replies 4 participants last post by  Byron 
#1 ·
Hi everybody! I have a planted 55g that I'm STILL having trouble with. My 25g plants are WEEDS, going crazy, but the 55g has been a headache. I think its a lighting problem, but I'm looking for some opinions. Please and thank you!

Its a 55g blackwater setup. I have play sand as a substrate, and leaf litter. I have pretty hefty amount of driftwood. Its kept at about 77 degrees F, and I run an Emperor 400 with a prefilter sponge. The pH is 7.4. It has Limnobium laevigatum (frogbit), Pistia stratiotes (water lettuce), and about 18 Vallisneria americana gigantea (jungle val) presently. It has a single bulb fixture. Originally it was on for 12 hours/day. It is lightly stocked and has MTS.

On 9.8 I started adding plants. The water lettuce and a few vals went in at this time. (I have slowly added more vals along the way. Most of the vals have looked a little rough to begin with.) The bulb was a 40w T10, unknown K, and it was old. On 9.26, the water lettuce was sending daughters and looking good. The vals looked the same as when I planted them. On 9.29, I started dosing 4.6mL of Flourish Comprehensive weekly. On 10.12 I had a quite sudden die back on the water lettuce. The largest heads started losing leaves, and the roots totally fell off. Only the small heads were left. It was at this time that I had a nitrate reading of about 15ppm. Other than this, my trates have never been over 5ppm in this tank. On 10.13 I removed the first of three dead vals. I also started adding some frogbit from another tank to help with the trates. I've never had more than a 10"x10" patch of floaters, combined, so I don't think they are blocking too much light. On 10.12 I installed a T8 6500K bulb and added the last of the vals, but this batch was VERY healthy. On 10.27, I upped the photoperiod to 14 hours. This is when I saw an increase in diatoms and hair algae. Today, almost a month after the new bulb, I expected to see that everything has bounced back. It hasn't. In fact, those healthy vals I added a month ago, even with the new light, are starting to look just as pitiful as the rest of the vals.

So, I've ruled out certain things as culprits: substrate, snails, pH, hardness, ferts. Things I have not ruled out: light, blackwater. I mean, my water isn't dark, its just a nice amber glow. (Well, it was until I installed the new bulb that has a much greater spike in the blue spectrum. Remember those old Ziplock commercials? Yellow and blue makes green? Yeah, well now my tank looks LIME GREEN. Its very unpleasant looking. But that's a whole 'nother rant. :roll:)

I'm thinking the solution is a 48" fixture with two bulbs. Well, that's my guess. I can't really afford that right now, and even when I can afford it, I don't want to waste my money if that's not the problem. But I also don't want to waste the money I've already spent on plants, either. So does anyone have any ideas? I'd be very, VERY grateful!

And thanks for reading my long-winded post. You're all awesome!
 
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#4 ·
Oh and I would cut back the time back to something like 8 hrs a day. At 14 hours you are going to see an increase of algae. The plants won't be able to benefit from that much lighting. Plants will only photosynthesize if all the nutrients are there. Once one is missing they will slow down or stop altogether. In a naturally planted tank C02 is your limiting factor and will be used up way before 14 hours and then algae will take hold of the remainder of the nutrients and light.
 
#6 ·
I totally get what you're saying about nutrients, that aligns with my understanding. And I can add root tabs that may help, but that's not CO2. So saying that CO2 is the limiting factor, and iif I'm not willing to do pressurized CO2, and if Excel melts vals... what else can I do?
 
#7 ·
Cut back on the hours the lights are on. This serves two purposes. First when the lights are on say 8 hours they will benefit from the nutrients. 2nd when the lights are off it gives the plants downtime or a rest period giving the bacteria time to replenish the C02 levels in the tank.
 
#9 ·
Okay, I see what you're saying.
So I reset my timer to 2:30p to 12:30a, which is 10 hours, maybe I should reset it for 4:30p.

I swear, this 55g has been the type of tank to run a person out of the hobby. My 25g is the golden child, couldn't be easier. But sometimes I want to drain the 55g and set it out on the curb! My sanity-saving mantra lately has been "At least the fish are healthy. At least the fish are healthy. At least the fish are healthy." :lol:
 
#10 ·
I have a 29 gallon similar to that but it has a fungus problem I can't figure out but my 55 gallon is doing great lol. Anyways you can try 10 hrs and see what happens from there. If you are still getting algae problems then I would cut back some more.
 
#11 ·
Is it wood fungus? That cloudy/milky stuff? I know there are many types of fungus, but whenever I've had it come up, my MTS devoured it like it was their JOB.

I feel your frustration. My tank that IS growing plants awesomely I can't even scape because I've got mystery hitchhiker fry in there presently. So I've got a bunch of very pretty, healthy plants that are just sitting around randomly and taunting me. lol

Patience is a virtue, eh? :roll:

But back to the 55g... In my experience, fast growing to moderately fast growing plants take about two weeks to settle in and start taking off. So you think it will be about two weeks before I see a difference in the vals?
 
#13 ·
Not much I can add to this thread, it has been covered fairly well.

Hair algae being a green algae will increase with light that is beyond the nutrient balance. Diatoms however are another matter, these occur in low light or when silicates are present. Or when the biology is not yet balanced, as in new tanks.

The single tube might not be sufficient intensity for the Vallisneria, esp with floating plants. But, I should mention that this plant is growing in my 33g which is low/moderate light, and soft acidic water too. Though it is not growing all that well, but it is not dying off which is the real test in my view. If a plant dies off, something is wrong; but if it remains alive, albeit with slow or virtually no growth, it is serving its purpose.
 
#14 ·
Yes, the diatoms are there because its a new tank, only 2 or 3 months old, but they really kicked up their production with the new bulb at 12-14 hours per day. (A little off topic... Aesthetically, I really like a lot of forms of algae. Is that weird, or what?! :lol:)

Tonight I noticed that the vals are looking even worse, and seem to be going downhill more quickly than before. Even with adjusting my lighting to help with CO2, I don't think my vals look good enough at this point for any hopes of a rebound without drastic measures.

So can anyone suggest a very inexpensive way to up my lighting on this tank? Otherwise, I'm moving on to plan B, below:

Barring some fantastic advice on cheap lighting... I'm thinking that my only option at this point, if I want to protect my investment in the vals and yet can't afford to upgrade my lighting yet, is to temporarily dump the vals in my 25g. That tank happily grows anything I throw at it. It will be really crowded in there, and I hope the fry won't mind. I just didn't want to do this because A. I want my 55g to be pretty, darnit, and look the way I had planned it! and B. I'm battling with a young outbreak of pond and ramshorn snails, and trying to pick those out. Well, at least getting the pond snails out of there. And I don't really want to introduce pond snails into the 55g when I move the vals back.

Sometimes it seems like its all trade-offs and choosing the lesser evil in this aquarium game!

I'm feeling pretty blue tonight, so I'm going to say it- If I knew how much trouble this tank was going to be, I don't know that I would've set it up. This was supposed to be part of my therapy and lift my spirits (chronic pain condition), but its been bumpier than I'd hoped, to put it mildly. All of you on this forum are pretty stinkin' awesome, though! Thanks and thanks again for all the wonderful advice!
 
#15 ·
I too have had tanks that seemed to be endless failures. Each tank can have its own biology and sometimes it seems to take some trial and error to find the balance.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Ditto on the vals, I've had no luck with them. I can grow very nice Myro, ugly spindly Cabomba, and more Rotalia than I know what to do with, but no success with vals of any type to date...

I have hair algae troubles if I keep my light on more than 7-8 hours.
Good luck!
 
#18 ·
Thanks, DKRST! It always helps to know I am not alone. And I apologize to everyone for my self pity the other night. I'll try to keep my chin up. I keep telling myself "Mina, you're learning a lot from all the pitfalls of this tank. Its making you a better aquarist.". :)

You know, speaking of other plants, I just remembered...
For about a month I had a pot of Vallisneria spiralis (Italian Val) in that tank. It was centrally located, while all the other Vals are around the back/sides. And it was pre-potted in that spongy stuff. BUT the spiralis did GREAT. It and grew quite happily, sent off a LOT of daughters. And this was under the OLD low K light!

Before I jump to conclusions, what does everyone else make of that?
 
#19 ·
Thanks, DKRST! It always helps to know I am not alone. And I apologize to everyone for my self pity the other night. I'll try to keep my chin up. I keep telling myself "Mina, you're learning a lot from all the pitfalls of this tank. Its making you a better aquarist.". :)

You know, speaking of other plants, I just remembered...
For about a month I had a pot of Vallisneria spiralis (Italian Val) in that tank. It was centrally located, while all the other Vals are around the back/sides. And it was pre-potted in that spongy stuff. BUT the spiralis did GREAT. It and grew quite happily, sent off a LOT of daughters. And this was under the OLD low K light!

Before I jump to conclusions, what does everyone else make of that?
It likely had more light over it. It was "settled" which can take time when a plant is placed in a new environment. There may have been nutrients in the rock wool (pot material). If it was the Corkscrew Vall, that tends to be easier.
 
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