aHumanError
New Member
Goodevening everyone.
New to the forum, not really a beginner fish-keeper but I've not really had many issues up until recently.
So... the story is that I have a 64L tank, and for the past 4 or 5 years I had a twin LED light (pic attached) which was an upgrade (From a "biult-in" single) for my tank at the time. I had no problems with it until the LEDs started burning out.
Typically I couldn't find a direct replacement so I found a different twin LED light ("Interpet") that I thought was similar... and it was the worst thing I ever bought for my tank. After about a week I had an algae explosion. I'm not all up on algae but It was long green hair like algae that grew all over the plants, I couldn't remove it other than to take off the leaves. I tried reducing the hours the light was on (It's on a timer) and upped the water changes but it just seemed constant.
After 4~5 weeks the algae turned into some dark green slime which grew on everything, it resembles something from the blob... or slimer out the Ghostbusters. The good thing is it's much easier to remove from plants, bad things is this stuff seems to grow at a phenomenal rate, and basically ruined all my plants and made the water smell.
So rather than going on the hunt for another light that could end up making no difference, and spending more money (Because let's face it, for what they are they're pretty expensive) I had an idea and wired in a small potentiometer circuit I had laying about that would allow me to reduce the brightness of the light.. which I did by about 50%. I also done a 50% water change and removed and cleaned everything.
This was around 4 days ago and already the damn algae has already grew back on the substrate and some leaves (on what's left of the plans). Initially I blamed the light for being to intense, but now I'm starting to think it's something else, but then at the very least I'm pretty convinced the new light caused it. I've not had to test my water for years, I recently did this and all results seem normal, I even took a sample of my water to some local fish store that also does free tests and they too say it's fine.
So I'm unsure as to where to go next, it still seems to be appearing despite all my efforts. I'm sure someone who knows what I'm doing wrong can help
New to the forum, not really a beginner fish-keeper but I've not really had many issues up until recently.
So... the story is that I have a 64L tank, and for the past 4 or 5 years I had a twin LED light (pic attached) which was an upgrade (From a "biult-in" single) for my tank at the time. I had no problems with it until the LEDs started burning out.
Typically I couldn't find a direct replacement so I found a different twin LED light ("Interpet") that I thought was similar... and it was the worst thing I ever bought for my tank. After about a week I had an algae explosion. I'm not all up on algae but It was long green hair like algae that grew all over the plants, I couldn't remove it other than to take off the leaves. I tried reducing the hours the light was on (It's on a timer) and upped the water changes but it just seemed constant.
After 4~5 weeks the algae turned into some dark green slime which grew on everything, it resembles something from the blob... or slimer out the Ghostbusters. The good thing is it's much easier to remove from plants, bad things is this stuff seems to grow at a phenomenal rate, and basically ruined all my plants and made the water smell.
So rather than going on the hunt for another light that could end up making no difference, and spending more money (Because let's face it, for what they are they're pretty expensive) I had an idea and wired in a small potentiometer circuit I had laying about that would allow me to reduce the brightness of the light.. which I did by about 50%. I also done a 50% water change and removed and cleaned everything.
This was around 4 days ago and already the damn algae has already grew back on the substrate and some leaves (on what's left of the plans). Initially I blamed the light for being to intense, but now I'm starting to think it's something else, but then at the very least I'm pretty convinced the new light caused it. I've not had to test my water for years, I recently did this and all results seem normal, I even took a sample of my water to some local fish store that also does free tests and they too say it's fine.
So I'm unsure as to where to go next, it still seems to be appearing despite all my efforts. I'm sure someone who knows what I'm doing wrong can help