Is it possible to have too much lighting?

[Zulaab]

Screename. I think what you are thinking of is a 20T with single 400W MH top.. that should about cover it.. and mine thought here would not stick out side the glass.. now ofcourse you could put a 10 gallon in a box which you have painted ULTRA white and then shine another 400 MH onto from the side or top.. now remember you would most likely put a ATO on the system to stop from evaporation to be a concern in the tank.. now your reservoir would be another question

[imagirlgeek]

Okay, so someone tell me what I need to buy to make this tank awesome. I have the patience...but I go to the LFS and am overwhelmed by the number of different products. I have bought Excel, now how often to I dose? I also used those Seachem Flourish tabs. My substrate is Flourite. My bubble counter is 1 bubble per second.

What else can you guys tell me?

[eklikewhoa]

Having the tank lit on all sides would be stupendous!

[screename]

Having the tank lit on all sides would be stupendous!

Thats what Im doing right now I can actually "bend" my plants now if I load my lighting to a certain side.

Traci, heres a good read for you. Read all the sub-categories on the right side as well.

http://www.rexgrigg.com/

[wesleydnunder]

Traci, I use a fert from Aquariumfertilizer.com called PMDD pre-mix. It's a dry mix that contains potassium, nitrate, magnesium and trace elements. It costs 10 dollars a pound and a pound lasts a long, long time. It can be dosed dry or dissolved in water to make drops.

You can make a drop checker to check for co2 saturation or calculate how much you have by testing KH and ph. Chuck Gadd has a chart that makes this easier. It assumes your sole KH component is carbonate, so if your water has other buffers, the chart is skewed. I keep my co2 at 25ppm to 30ppm.

My 125 has almost 5 WPG of pc and NO fluorescent. The growth is prolific.

Root tabs are good for root feeders like big swords and crypts. Make sure you put them deep under the plant because they can cause a nutrient surge if allowed to dissolve up in the water column and you could get a major algae bloom.

I'd start slow, like suggested earlier; maybe an 8 hr photoperiod (You can always increase if you need). If you turn the co2 off with a solenoid, run the lights and co2 on two separate timers. To keep from having too much of a co2 swing during the photoperiod, I have the co2 come on 2 hrs before the lights come on and go off 1 hr before the lights go out.

Mark

[eklikewhoa]

Here are things that worked for me...

Lighting - I like to start my tanks on a 5-6hr photo period initially (the tank needs to get established and normally with new substrate you will get a nutrient bloom in the pre-stages, plus plants need to acclimate themselves and don't ultilize as much during this time) Then work up by an hour as you progress along with your tank, the plants will tell you what they need in the form of deficiencies and growth.
Plants will grow to the light or their growth will reflect the lighting... i.e. if there is not enough PAR where the plant is then it will grow to where there is, with this you get the long leggy looking plants or the opposite, nice compact and lush growth.

Substrate - I love ADA Aquasoil, it's abundant in nutrients and capable of sustaining demanding plants for a good length of time before you will need to start dosing. It will also keep parameters acidic for those awesome planted tank fish!
IME with any new substrate I would do daily to every other day water changes to keep from having the parameters jump from one extreme to the other. Most high nutrient susbtrates will alter your tank's chemistry so helping the transition go slowly will keep your fish and plants happy (some plants do not take well to drastic changes).

Ferts - I have done Seachem, G.Watson dry and ADA's Brighty line and love most of the ADA stuff for it's "punch" but then it's not cost efficient. You can start with the EI (Estimative Index) method and then adjust to tailor to your tank's needs and again by watching the deficiencies shown by the plants. Now I'm gonna say again... start low and work up.

CO2/Excel - I like to run Co2 a bit inhumane.... I will slowly crank it up till I later notice the fish gasping then drop it a bubble or two. Keeping Co2 abundant will make it always available to the plants, suffocate algae and give you room for error in the above parts.
I started off running the co2 on a timer but found that human designed/made mechanical parts have a tendency to fail thus wiping out all of your hard work. What I ended up doing for the Co2 is setting my Co2 as I stated above and once it was dialed in I would lower it even more after testing water params after the length of lights out to see how much the co2/o2 changes. Now this would accomplish not too much co2 while lights are off but plenty of co2 long before lights come on, So it's always available. Also you could put an airstone for night time or raise your filter outputs before the lights go out.

Now with the Excel, I normally only use this once a week just for added "Umph" or during an algae break out, other then that I don't find the need with the use of Pressurized Co2.

Flow - All tanks need flow, although plants ultilize co2 they also perspire at night so this helps keep the tank balanced if you have fish or other life forms. Also where there is flow there is not stagnant water which helps with the water chemistry and this in turn keeps the algae from finding it's "haven".