Need Help With Lighting

Tutmose

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Sep 7, 2018
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Greetings. I am new to this site. I have a 110 gal tall freshwater tank. I made a few mistakes but I think I am slowly getting on a right path. I have a few questions:

1. Lighting: I have two fluval aquasky LED lights, each 35 watt, running the entire length of the tank. Is it adequate considering my tank dimensions in inches: length 48, height 29, depth 18. Substrate depth about 2 inches. Lights sit on the top of the glass. Lighting are on for 6 hrs a day.

2. EI: I use dry ferts 1-2 times a week using your recs for low tech excel tank with weekly 50% water change. I also introduced around 20 florish tabs into substrate when I started planting since I think I over-vaccumed when I just had plastic plants and fish. I have "easy" plants - anubias, java fern, swords, lily, horwort, anacharis, creeping charlie, fox tail, crypts. I used dry CSM-B once, at half recommended dose, instead of flourush compr and the next day my anubias root system, fox tail and hornwort started turning bronze. I am checking my water parameters and it seems to be ok: GH - 6, KH -3, Nitrates 20-30, Phosphates 4-5, ph 7.0, zero nitrites and zero ammonia. Some leaves look burned but i do have some normal new growth. What am I doing wrong?

3. BBA: I have some BBA which do not seem to go away on the driftwood. I will introduce otos and SAE next week. Amano shrimps do not like my tank and sit closer to the surface. I use excel at double dose ( 20cc daily), have two fluval 406 canister filters and curculation pump designed for up to 135 gal

I appreciate any advice from the experts! Thank you for your help.
 

jeffkrol

New Member
Jan 11, 2018
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Certainly not an expert but some experience..

Lightings only good for low light plants really and esp. at 6 hours/day..
deep wide tank..

Never found Excel in that low of dose to be effective for BBA..
Last time I fought off BBA in a 55 only 1/2mL (CC) per gallon of Met14 (glut ) did much of anything.
Some people have even dosed as high as 1mL/gallon though not w/ shrimp.


Met14 is stronger than Excel..1.73x stronger.. Seachem Flourish Excel would need to be dosed at 93.5cc's for equiv to 1/2cc Met14/gallon..
Do some searching on Met14 and BBA..

As a cautionary note..43mL of Met14 in a 40B killed some of my fish and set my biofilter back to a mini cycle for a few days..
The fish killed were few and mostly older or weakened fish (had a touch of columnaris) fish w/ the exception of a Golden Algae eater..it was sad..
THIS is fairly unusual and cause is a bit ? since many have dosed much higher.

I'll leave the ferts to others but 20 root tabs w/ low CO2, low light seems excessive, and then to dose on top????
 

rajkm

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Sep 16, 2015
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The lights is low light at best.

Dosing wise pick a routine and stick to it. Start with lower dose appropriate for your tank/Low light conditions. Since you already added flourish tabs, I don’t see the need of much water column dosing unless the root tabs are exhausted.

Excel is not CO2, so shrimps sifting at top could be a different reason, including bad water conditions. I would suggest to keep Nitrates at about 5$7 anytime you measure it. Anything above is a waste.