130 Watt Coralife on my 75G excel tank ?

Crazymidwesterner

Guru Class Expert
Feb 3, 2007
128
0
16
Dixon IL
I have a 20 inch deep 75 Gallon tank with a 130 Watt Coralife Aqualight above it. It started out about 4 inches above the tank and growth was good in most plants but certain plants were struggling like Ludwigia repens., rotala rotundifolia, and my bacopa Caroliniana leaves were small compared to many pictures I have seen. I want those big cupped leaves I see all over :)

My goal is just slow but steady lush growth in a non pressurized excel dosed CO2 aquarium.

Nutrients are definitely non limiting as I dose practically pressurized EI rates in this tank. I also dose 2x the excel recommended dose of excel. 15 ML every day including at water changes.

To attempt to help the struggling plants I did two things.

1. Add root tabs just in case the plants preferred to root feed

2. Dropped the lights two inches.

I should know better than to change two things at once but I don't apparently. I now am starting to see some algae. Black spots on some leaves and on the edges and some hair algae. Mainly on the bacopa. From what I understand ferts don't cause algae so I am assuming it was me dropping the light 2 inches correct?

I upped it back to 4 inches now hoping that will help with the issue. I saw a grid with PAR reading flying around this forum or plantedtank.net that I thought put my lights at extremely low light when 4 inches above the tank so I thought I would be good.

Any advice on this would greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
C

csmith

Guest
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/lighting/105774-par-vs-distance-t5-t12-pc.html

This is the chart you're talking about, right? I'd say you're looking for results not best suited to your methods. Adding more light in an Excel tank could be a disaster waiting to happen. If you're looking for the bigger growth, you'd be better off looking into the pressurized CO2 tanks. If your goal really is slow/steady and staying non-CO2, you're going to need to keep with lesser light.
 

Crazymidwesterner

Guru Class Expert
Feb 3, 2007
128
0
16
Dixon IL
Yeah that's the one. I can handle using less light if that's the answer which based on my recent results that appears to be. I've seen some gorgeous non CO2 tanks so I know it can be done.

I don't like using pressurized CO2 (Used it before a couple years ago because getting it filled around here it tough but I may have to cave). Looking at that closer I think mine falls between the no reflector and AH supply reflector most likely so I may have been pushing medium light. It's a little confusing because the grid seems to point to low light but the graph above seems to put me more medium/low light. I didn't take into account substrate height either. I wonder if raising my light a little higher even would produce even better results. I may be limiting some of these plants in CO2 at the current level. I don't know. I'll try anything before switching back to pressurized CO2.
 
C

csmith

Guest
I'd say you're on the right track. I think the main thing here is the lighting you have, they'll take some playing around with to find where the best height is for your goals. T-5HO lights aren't the "optimal" lighting setup for running non-CO2 tanks. You'll do fine, just takes some patience.