I currently run one 48' 6500k T8 bulb on my 55g that I run 9hrs a day, I have mostly anubias couple amazon swords and floating wisteria and pennywort. Growth is very slow as expected but plants looks nice and green, I fertilize once a week with flourish comp. My question is I also have a double strip fixture and have used in the past and every time I used it BBA became a problem and browning on my floating plants, I ran it for 8hrs a day and increased fertilizer dosage to twice a week. If I do a 4 hour on 2 hour off and 4 hour on lighting period will this possibly stop the algae? I have a community tank with about 30 mostly small fish. Ph is 8.2-8.4, dh is 12 and temperature is 76-77.
With fluorescent tubes, wattage is fixed to tube length. They are not like CFLs were you can get different values.
A 48" T8 is 32 watts each.
@smit3183
I have a 125 gallon which is only 2 inches deeper. Having the exact same issue with dual T8's. (A 125g is 6 feet long)
I'm about at the point where I'm going to just let Water Sprite cover the surface and only have ultra low light plants below (Java Fern & Anubias).
The only way I could make it work I think would be to elevate the lights, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I don't want them hanging from my ceiling.
If only they made affordable single T5HO fixtures. That's 1.5x the intensity of a T8 and would be perfect I think.
Yeah, I'll just stick with the single. Just seeing the plants growing so slow can become a little frustrating at times when you hear others on this board getting much faster grow. I've never been able to get balance with 2 bulbs, it never worked for me. It was frustrating seeing my pennywort stems melt so much from the acclimating to my light. I had bought like 6 bunches and now I have just a couple stems that didn't completely melt and a lot of little twigs. Seems as if they've finally adjusted as I'm getting growth now and no more melting. I have it floating
Oh, I figure that if they are growing, all is good. CO2 and high light just sounds like more of a hassle and if the balance is off for any reason, things can go south very fast... I would prefer to have some time to think and make small adjustments as needed.
Of course if you had plants that need the high light levels, that's a whole other matter.
I've floated all my pennywort, I prefer it that way now.
When I had my 55 gallon up and running I had it with a dual T8 fixture. The bulbs were just GE natural daylight bulbs 6500k.
I had the best I can remember Pennywort floating along with by Jungle vals on the surface (they just grew that tall and never stopped!). I would tend to get bba on the floating plants from time to time. Through here's the thing *if* I didn't have the floating plants I would get the bba on my rooted plants like crazy so I just it alone on the floaters as they would seem to manage. Posted via Mobile Device
I'm doing something similar now. I've got wisteria and pennywort floating covering the entire surface with a bunch of anubias a crypt and an amazon sword below.
Reading through the messages, I don't think I saw a suggestion to raise the lights higher or try window screening covering the light's output. I would try the screening first, then maybe a foot higher on the lights without the screening. Remember, too, that, especially with plants that are growing slow, it may take a little time before you get the results.
Steven
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