Hc (cuba) Or Glosso Elatinoides?

[aaronnorth]

i am setting up a 60l tank here is what i will be using/ stats

temp - 25c
co2 - diy
substrate - fertiliser (pro flora) sand then a small patch of black pea gravel on top of fertiliser - rough idea:

pea gravel ------
fertiliser -----
sand -----------------------
fertiliser -----------------------

light - 36w daylight plus ( 2.7WPG ) or would i be better with a higher light, up to 3.8WPG ?

which would you say is easiest.

above is the plan (bit rubbish only did it quick though) but i might add a carpeting plant to toally cover it up

 

[garuf]

Post up the dimensions, you may find that 36watt power compact doesn't give you such good light, I use it and Find it drowns out colours and only adds to algae.

 

[SuperColey1]

As per Garuf's statement. I found that PC lights seem to 'centralise' the light and this is why it 'drowns' out the colour.

The light is so bright that you cant see much in the higher reaches of the tank that are under the light.

I would go for T5 or T5/HO or even T8 over a PC light as they spread the light better and are more viewable.

2.7WPG over a 65Ltr should be perfect for anything although you can use more, you may find it just creates more problems than anything else.

As for the initial question, I prefer glosso, it gives a much lusher look to the tank than HC but then HC is the in thing at the moment!!.

Andy

 

[aaronnorth]

dimensions are:

(l) 60cm x 30cm (d) x 35cm (h)

tube is 40cm in length so there would roughly be 10cm each end without out light coverage
what exactly do you mean by 'drowning' out the light?

 

[garuf]

Washed out? Greens appearing whitish when they should be luscious green.

I'd go with linear T5's, better light spread and better growth, it might be worth mentioning you will only need to dose very lightly and you may find it difficult to fight algae, I really don't know how these sand foregrounded tanks get away with it.

 

[aaronnorth]

i am getting a uv steriliser set up when the water is added so this should cure the possible algae problem right?

 

[garuf]

No, uv as far as I know only works on algae blooms like green water, supercoley did a very good review of the problems we both had with PC but for the life of me I can't find it.
It went something like that because of the super heigh light only in one area the plants there we're needing more of everything than could be provided and therefore suffering.

 

[SuperColey1]

This is the review. you can look at all the different lights in there. What I mean by washed out is that the huge amount of light that a PC has squeezed into a small space means that you can't really see what is right below it very well. Much like trying to watch a plane in the sky with the sun in your eyes. Much better to get 2 T5 linears same length as the PC and you should then have the same wattage but you can position the linears further apart and not adjoined like a PC is.

LINK TO HOT5 REVIEW

A UV will kill ALL algae spores that pass through it. A few of us have UVs including me (Vecton2 200). We still get some algae.

It is more of a preventative measure than a cure and also means that I only use 9W to heat my water rather than 200W saving me approx £50 a year on electricity.

(The heater is 200W but as the UV warms the water up to the desired temperature the heater only turns on occasionally on colder nights or days)

With a UV you have to remember that it can only kill things that pass through the UV unit. In the case of parasites, if they are in the water then they get killed, if they are already on a fish then they don't and you then need meds. Same with algae, if it attaches to a plant before it gets through the filter system then it will not die as it will remain on the plant. This then means you need to find out what is wrong with the balance of the tank wether it be lighting too high or nutrient defficiency or bad CO" production/circulation etc to 'cure' the problem.

Andy

 

[aaronnorth]

great post, see what you mean, i have just set the tank up today with hardscape, i am going to make it into a journal i think.