Q? about lighting and algae and co2?

[George Farmer]

Yes. 6700K is generally ideal.

 

[utahfish]

thanks for all your help. it's funny becasue before all i had was the 20 watt fluorescent and my plants were going crazy but the higher light plants like anarchis and micro sword werent growing at all so i figured if i got more light it would be good but then i was told if i had more light it wouldnt do any good with out Co2 so i bought my compac fluorescent day lamp 67K 65 watt and paired with a 20watt 67K so i had a total of 85 watts which gave me 3 watts/ gallon and some one told me it wasnt enough light so i got another power compact 65w upping my watts to 130 and now your telling me too much light not enough nutrients, and that makes sense. i think i'll go back down to 85watts get rid of the blue and see how that does.

wow i didnt add any periods, that is the longest run on sentance ever written i should get a prize or something.

 

[George Farmer]

That was a long sentence!

As you probably realise; extra light needs extra CO2 and nutrients. It's all about balance my friend.

 

[utahfish]

That was a long sentence!

As you probably realise; extra light needs extra CO2 and nutrients. It's all about balance my friend.

your right. i could fork out the money for more nutrients but it gets pricey as does replacing more bulbs, and if i can grow the same plants with 3 watts/gallon as i can with 4.5 watts/ gallon than why not save myself the money.

also as far as nutrients go which have you found to be the best. i tried plant grow which was high in chaleted iron but also contained copper and i didnt want the copper to kill off my shrimp. so then i tried flora pride which has K20 3.00% FE .19% but not much else. and i wasnt sure if this was enough iron so i bought some fluorish iron.

is there any one bottle of nutrients that is best or is it better to buy your seperate bottle of nutrients, like IRON, then a bottle of potassium and a bottle of carbonic phospahte.

i've also used some root tabs that didnt seem to do much but encourage algae.

what would you reccomend being the best set of nutrients?

 

[George Farmer]

Have you heard of Tom Barr's Estimative Index? This is what you need I guess.

 

[utahfish]

nope but it would be good than i could figure out what the heck i'm doing instead of just chucking plants and other stuff in and hoping they grow faster than the algae.

as you might be able to tell i'm a little in over my head.