light question on midday bursts

Some folks may want to ask if you have pressurized CO2 and a sound dosing plan before answering your question.

 

A Little Rude

The main thread is here http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/6802-cant-get-a-carpet-going-no-matter-wot-i-do that explains Lee' situation.

i would think it better to answer stich with that thread than confuse Lee and everyone else.

Biollante

 

You are right.

It is a bit confusing. The same question was asked on the main thread. It does make it a bit hard to keep up with. That's OK through. It's whatever the OP wants to do.

 

DaBub's answer seemed pretty straight forward over at http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/6802-cant-get-a-carpet-going-no-matter-wot-i-do.

How posting another thread and not bothering to give the information is supposed to get you an answer you prefer is beyond me.

Of course you can post anywhere you wish. However as Biollante said it does seem rude.

Joe

 

Ask away any way you wish. I know in many cases I'll skip over posts that seem to have nothing to do with what I need to know or don't have any experience with. It helps to reference any other related threads though wince there's often details or ideas involved which can be expanded on.

Back to the "burst" question, ikm currently doing the exact opposite with a siesta as my lighting is perhaps too much. However, were I to use a midday burst I would start with a 90 minute increase and then drop that off. If your lamps are the same color temps I'd just use two timers and overlap the coverage in the middle which may be a simpler method overall.

-
S

 

Brown diatoms typically are either a nutrient issue - not enough of something, or a flow issue. You can always cheat and add some ottocinclus and let them eat it, but that doesn't deal with the underlying issue. I found that flow is often not nearly as good as you would think. Using the CO2 "mist" will at least let you visualize the flow since you can see the bubbles blowing around, but you'd be surprised at how easily even one stem plant can kill the flow in an area.

My biocube runs with a 250gph rated pump ( not getting that kind of output since I use that pump as my needlewheel/CO2 injector ) and I've got a koralia nano in there, so in theory I should have something like 500 gph of flow in a 25ish gallon tank. There's just no way that's happening and the center of the tank with the driftwood and the E. Bleheri is most likely a stagnant center of the gyre so I'm thinking of some locline and splitters in the near future. I'm putting in something like 3-5 BPS which seems like a lot and I had lots of algae. I started adding Excel ( 2 capfuls daily ) and the algae is slowly dropping off and I dose EI for a 40 gallon. I don't dose K2S04 and don't have CSM so I dose Flourish and Flourish iron ( capful of each every other day ). Lots of variables here for comparing our two tanks.

I only use ONE of the PC lights and still loads of algae. Most likely I have a missing nutrient which I don't have a test kit for, maybe K from the lack of K2S04 or maybe even the SO4 for all I know. My BPS won't be the same as yours due to variables in the CO2 system, but I've had my 5lb tank now for 8+months so I KNOW that I'm not really pushing all that much in there despite the bubble count compared to others who run a 5lb tank dry in 3 months on a 55gallon tank. Substrate is Flourish.

I've got a decent load in the tank, four ottos, maybe 12 black neons, 6 cories, and a dozen amano shrimp and some undetermined number of ghost shrimp < a dozen. Based on what I've read I should have a pristine tank and I have some ideas as to why. Mostly down to flow and/or CO2, but I can't discount the possibility that I've got some other inutrient issues going on. I also give the plants a "free" "CO2 bath" weekly during maintenance when I drop the water level down to an inch or two so I can prune and whatnot.

Maybe some of that helps give you some ideas of things to try. I'd start with CO2 and FLOW but Biollante can give you much better dosing advice than I can. An easy way to play with CO2 and flow is the needlewheel method and just start aiming it around the tank a bit and see what happens. The larger Koralia will help too. You may want to go up a size larger than you think you need since it's so easy to block the flow. The new ones should be out soon and they are supposedly less power, more flow, and smaller.

-
S