Hi James,
which according to a well known online site and magazine is actually not enough and it tells me to increase by several more watts of light.
There is a tremendous amount of misinformation and myths out there in the world and bad info has a way of staying around for a long time.
As Vaughn states, you have plenty of light to grow many plants well. However plants need carbon and other nutrients to grow well and healthy.
Also, these nutrients need to be made available sufficient to the lighting provided...Higher light causes a higher demand for these things and when they are not available, the plant health suffers, nh4 is released and the algae take advantage and grow.
the substrate has all the feed needed for the plants supposedly and i was informed if i add anything what so ever along with the substrate i have used then it will do nothing for the plants but encourage algae to grow.
Plants take nutrients both from the substrate AND the water column so fertilizing from both areas will help ensure sufficient levels. I am not familiar with your substrate, but many planted tanks will benefit from water column dosing regardless of substrate.
The key to all this however is providing stable and sufficient levels of c02 for the lighting provided. When you have less light, this demand is reduced and also the need for other nutrients.
With your levels of light you need more c02. Insufficient c02 will cause the plant difficulties in assimilating other nutrients. DIY c02 is tough enough to ensure stable and sufficient c02 levels.
Do not forget that as plants grow and reproduce, they need even more c02 and nutrients.
A weekly 50% water change with EI dosing and decent c02 and you will see a big difference in plant health and growth.
Nutrients in and of themselves do not 'cause' algae.
I totally agree with Vaughn's advice. Or you can lower your light and still dose EI and see if that works even better. More light is not necessarily always better.
it seems no matter where i go a get no 2 answers the same what so ever which is extremely annoying as in the past listening to several ways has caused me to lose an entire tank of fish , plants hence why i left the hobby for several years.
Today 04:40 PM
Yes this is unfortunate. However you can give this a shot for 2-3 weeks, no and see if things are better?
Tom Barr does a tremendous amount of testing to support his ideas. Many here have used EI and good c02 to have beautiful algae free tanks, while dosing very high levels of macro and micro nutrients.
Give it a shot and see.
Best of luck.