Lighting Spectrum To Target Plant Quality Vs Plant Mass Yield

Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
Lol ye.
we need to trim the s repens hopefully itll make it 2 more weeks without having any dieoff of lower leaves bc i want rhe bavk to fill in more before trimming the carpet
 

skija

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S repens loves Co2 and iron , if co2 is in good shape it grows back in 2 weeks
 
Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
Yes however this is an extremely slow growing tank despite high light high co2 high ferts due to the lighting experiment, i suggest going back and reading in a bit bc this thread isnt about s. Repens its about a lighting experiment, its a weed in my other tanks which is why its only in this tank and my 120...
Stability is nother side of my experiment and if i trim too heavily aswell it will throw off the parameters. So the back gets trimmed once a month the carpet gets trimmed every month or 2
 
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Tim Harrison

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There aren't that many peer reviewed papers on spectrum and growth habit etc of aquatic plants; most research focuses on commercial terrestrial crops for obvious reasons. However, I found this peer reviewed paper some time ago which certainly suggests spectrum is an important factor... http://www.apms.org/japm/vol15/v15p29.pdf

With regards algae...does spectrum quality infer angiosperms with an advantage over algae?
I think research has found that overall algae can respond to a wider spectrum of light. So, I'm guessing the answer is no; they are plants too. Good house keeping which reduces organics is probably the best weapon against algae.

What is also of overriding importance for plant health and our fight against algae is flow and distribution of CO2; the most difficult factor to optimise.
Full spectrum bulbs probably provide more than enough light of different wavelengths to achieve desirable growth whatever your goal, quality and quantity.
Fertz are easy; eutrophic dosing methods like EI effectively mean we can rule deficiencies out of the equation.
 
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Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
Nobody wants to truly take the time to understand the full scope here however, there is a lot going on ill give it that but it seems fairly simple in the idea but most that review it get hung up on a few little factors and ignore the rest. Ohwell
 

rajkm

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Something doesn’t add up. If you are dosing 50ppm which is much higher that what I dose, and getting slower plant growth, and also have less residual Nitrates, it’s just off.
High nitrate absorption is linked to faster growth. If your plants are taking up all that nitrate and other elements but now producing sugars for growth, I am not sure what’s it using and storing it for.
 
Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
That is one of the most confusing aspects which is where i get fhe rooting hypothesis and the quality vs quantity. There are many plants out there that utilize that to increase longevity of cells and grow for very long periods of time mostly when one or more factors are in extreme, which is why i think the strong uvb in a short photoperiod(25% midday in this case) is causing an iceberg effect. I dont have a uvb meter so i cant tell the intensity butbased off the video of the bulb im using and the close pro ximity of it to the plants i think its safe to say its many tkmes more than what they would get outdoors.
 

burr740

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Seems like you need/needed a good control tank where everything was growing well to begin with. Duplicate the set up and then screw around with lights.

As long as you're still working out nutrient issues, or anything else for that matter, it's gonna be impossible draw any accurate conclusions about the effects of different light
 
Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
See the issue with controls is every system is different you cant expect "lab" grade/style results in any type of ecosystem... this tanks been up for a while now almost a year we moved in november i redid it but the original 20 long sprung a leak so the tank itself swapped but the substrate etc all stayed the same... my controls here are autodosing, light timers, and set waterchanges. january itll have auto waterchange aswell. Theres no nutrient issues what raj is referring to is, my dosing is based of tds creep and residual fertilizer every day. What i mean is we measure tds monday morning say 227 sunday morning before dosing it tests 257 then we reduce the dose 1ml/day repeat and the week range is 227-230 then we stay with that and test no3 and po4 this method has resulted in <5ppm no3 <.25ppm po4 residual in the water column. The only way for me to achieve this and not be in a nutrient deficit is to dose thrive+ to 7ppm no3 every day resulting in nearly 50ppm no3 9.1ppm po4 and 35ppm k every week with very minimal tds fluctuation/creep and very little nutrient buildup essentially my waterchanges are merely for organics removal... whats so perplexing for everyone is the slow growth i havnt trimmed the carpet in 2 months the background was trimmed 1 week ago(3 weeks for the lud. White) and you see today. Everything in the tank is extremely slow growing with very high nutrient uptake. I think thats got to do with the high levels of uvb and a good root structure....
This is the essence of my experiment though to improve on plant health and quality ignoring mass yield and so far its working, even though its completely misunderstood and shunned as you can see on facebook bc its tabboo from popular belief and methods.
 

rajkm

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I think one way for you to experiment will be to let this go on for a while.. then swap out bulbs for more over all spectrum. See the yield and speed and health. Let’s say you are still dosing the same, but speed and yield increased then it will give some credibility to the spectrum part. But if the results remain unchanged then we know it’s not. Next swap out specific bulbs for like reds then check results, swap to blue and check results, and in wash of the tests, do add a UVB test.

Ideal will be control vs test. But for lack of that you could possibly do this.
Now one of the fluctuations will be age of soil. This test may be better done with inert substrate to remove that.
 
Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
Yeah exactly ill have the wife remove the uv about a month before i come home, and when im home possibly do either 2-6500 2-7500s or 1 of each and 1 actinic 1 red or similar let it go for a while then add uv to it record results and then expand 3 reds 1 blue 3 blue 1 red etc
 

Tim Harrison

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Don't you think burr is right? Lab grade of not, I would have thought you'd need a control for comparison, otherwise you won't ever be sure that any significant differences are due to spectrum.
Surely TDS isn't going to give you info on which nutrients are present or deficient? And surely you need lab grade tests to be certain any other readings are accurate enough to draw significant conclusions. Wouldn't you perhaps be better off just using EI, to rule nutrient deficiencies out completely?...KISS.
 
Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
I can assure you theres zero deficiency.. this tank is the control this is phase 1 roughtly 2-3 months in.... tds is completely relevant in terms of fertilization/stability true some may be higher/lower but per the internet "Total dissolved solids (TDS) comprise inorganic salts (principally calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, bicarbonates, chlorides, and sulfates) and some small amounts of organic matter" attached yet again is my daily dose (the 7ppm no3 chart) next to it is ei daily... if i dosed ei this tank would become deficient.. like i said my controls for this tank were mentioned in using a known nutrient solution dosed to x at y time every day to where i have minimum tds creep and low excess nutrients that are less than the lowest value testable but above zero. Water change is with pure ro(no di no gh/kh boost etc). Lighting is set on a timer as is co2 at 5.8-6.0ph(cant remember offgassed i may have to test this atleast)

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Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
Been a minute since last update nothings really changed except we added some root tabs i got from aussie, theyre osmocote aquatic tabs made for aquatic ponds tanks etc.. we only added a few hoping to target the ammania and super red and some of the rarez on the right, which it did help but the damn staurogyne repens took off and got a small ammount of hair? Algae on the rock

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Feb 7, 2018
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Its been a while havnt done much to the tank since carpeting with camboba blem other than not take care of it lol but... Stems shown are grown under sbreefs except the bottom center stem grown unter T5HO of half the par except a more specific selected spectrum comprised of 4 bulbs including 2 hrs of strong uvb daily(the 5th bulb also reason for the oily look).. this is what ive been saying about utilizing light quality to change growth patterns and "nutrient" saturations within the plants

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rajkm

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It definitely looks better color saturation and healthy compact growth
 
Feb 7, 2018
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Twnnessee
We will have to put a full size stem in sunday for a better comparison of internode lengths etc i like the sheen it has lol but im suprised the reds arent more intense in the 40 with the high light