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.
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.