Roma 240 slow burn...

[CaptainBarnicles]

Wow that's gorgeous!

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I'm waiting for my red root floaters and nymphaea lotus to arrive...I hope the floaters will do well and I've not had much success with floating plants before now. The vall is doing well although some of the tips are disintegrating, not sure why? It's spreading though and reached the surface where its curling beautifully.

My crypts are doing well as usual, I'm going to stick some root tabs through them to ramp them up a bit...anubias is covered in algae but I'm hoping the floaters will help block out some of the light. I have a bit of bacopa that's growing soooo slowly, don't think the light is strong enough but the rotala is doing OK and so is the poly sperma. The Hydrocotyle seems to be in better shape but the elodea densa is turning brown in places

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

So excited! My light upgrade should be arriving tomorrow, I've gone with the Fluval Plant in the end.... I liked Bentley Pascoe's review...

And my tiny lotus has arrived with my beautiful crinum calamistratum I fell in love with the huge one that grew in one of Gary Lange's tanks and I HAD to have one but finding them has proven difficult... Proshrimp had one in so I snapped it up before someone else did, looking forward to seeing it grow in

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Gorgeous colours this morning

 

[Ch4rlie]

Beautiful rainbow. Lovely pic actually.

The light upgrade should help with your plant growths where you said some of the plants were not growing as well as should be like the elodea turning brown and the vals tips disintegrating, so that should do the trick as these plants are normally low tech plants really.

Root tabs will definitely help the crypts as these are heavy root feeders.

I’ve have had crinum calamistratum before and they are indeed beautiful plants with long leafs, well worth having for the larger tank imho. They will benefit from liquid ferts as well as root tabs I think if memory serves as it’s been a while since had these.

Keep up the good work.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

So excited! My light upgrade should be arriving tomorrow, I've gone with the Fluval Plant in the end.... I liked Bentley Pascoe's review...

Good choice. I spent a lot of time looking at lighting recently and the Fluval is definitely one of the best.

I went with a Finnex light as the output is almost the same (more than high enough for a high tech tank) just doesn't have as many features (but is a lot cheaper).

Tanks looking great. Are using using any ferts with it?

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I thought long and hard about the light, I'm fairly new to plants but it's become an absolute passion of mine and one day I'd love to get into high tech with c02 etc...so I love the idea of being able to use the fluval for pretty much all types of set ups, so I can work up to the high tech.

I'm using TNC lite at the moment, again, something I've got no clue about. There's so many fertilisers out there it's hard to know what to choose...I went for TNC as its highly spoken of on here...and from what I can tell the new growth since I've been using it looks really nice so far.

I do a 50% (ish) water change every week now that I've worked out how to do them without breaking my back!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I'm using TNC lite at the moment, again, something I've got no clue about.

Planted tanks are one of them areas were a lot of people have very specific ideas on what works and what doesn't. In reality I have found that it really isn't that complicated for most plants. Some halfway decent root tabs or substrate with a halfway decent water column fert and lighting will do the job 90% of the time. TNC does look like a pretty good brand from what I have seen.

You may have to adjust your lighting a bit when you first get it. It's pretty high output and you probably have nutrient availability so the only lack will be CO2. This may mean algae growth to fill the gap if your plant growth becomes CO2 limited and there is still plenty of nutrients and light to go around . You might need to adjust your lighting down a little just to rebalance the light/fert/CO2 triangle again.

I have to admit though I do love a high tech setup. Mostly because it is the most simply way to do it with very little thought needed. You have ferts, light and CO2 in abundance so no worries about trying to get a good balance. Plant growth can be absolutely insane as well. I used to trim out more from a 120l tank every week then I currently have planted in my 68l.

 

[noobfish]

So excited! My light upgrade should be arriving tomorrow, I've gone with the Fluval Plant in the end.... I liked Bentley Pascoe's review...

Bentley's review and setup series are some of the best out there!

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Planted tanks are one of them areas were a lot of people have very specific ideas on what
You may have to adjust your lighting a bit when you first get it. It's pretty high output and you probably have nutrient availability so the only lack will be CO2. This may mean algae growth to fill the gap if your plant growth becomes CO2 limited and there is still plenty of nutrients and light to go around . You might need to adjust your lighting down a little just to rebalance the light/fert/CO2 triangle again.

Good reminder, thank you! I was planning to play around with it a little when it arrived and possibly run it at 50% or so and see how I got on, I'm aware that there's a lot of natural light coming into the room as well...then gradually increase it a bit until I see the plants with higher light needs improving.

I have to admit though I do love a high tech setup. Mostly because it is the most simply way to do it with very little thought needed. You have ferts, light and CO2 in abundance so no worries about trying to get a good balance. Plant growth can be absolutely insane as well. I used to trim out more from a 120l tank every week then I currently have planted in my 68l.

Love to see some pics if you still have any? I'd be a fool to set up a c02 system now although it's soooo tempting! I don't know a solenoid from my elbow so I can just see me gassing us all to death

How would get the tank balanced after increasing the light? I won't be able to increase c02 any time soon unfortunately

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Bentley's review and setup series are some of the best out there!

I agree, he's very indepth!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

How would get the tank balanced after increasing the light? I won't be able to increase c02 any time soon unfortunately

I would just start the light low like you said and gradually ramp it up. I think the PAR at 12" for the fluval is about 120 (I might be wrong) I would drop the light to about 50-60% which should put it at around the "medium" light level for this tank and spend a few days watching how everything reacts. If plants start to look like they are not growing as well or dying off up it by 10%. If you are starting to see algae then drop it by 5-10%.

Then just keep upping it by 5-10% at a time until you start seeing algae showing up and then back it off a little. Make sure you give it enough time to really see what effect it is having. If it was me I would give it a week after every change to give everything time to adjust and better see what changes have happened. Remember as plants grow and fill out you may have to adjust it again.

Also with no added CO2 make sure you have good surface movement for gas exchange. With higher light you will burn through the CO2 in the water quicker. Good water movement will help with the gas exchange between air and water and help keep the CO2 at normal levels.

Edit: Photos - I lost most of them when this forum switched to a new codebase years ago. Did find a couple from my first planted tank though.

Edit: Photos, a lot of them got lost when this forum switched to a new version. did find a few from one of my first planted tanks though.

 

[noobfish]

I would just start the light low like you said and gradually ramp it up. I think the PAR at 12" for the fluval is about 120 (I might be wrong) I would drop the light to about 50-60% which should put it at around the "medium" light level for this tank and spend a few days watching how everything reacts. If plants start to look like they are not growing as well or dying off up it by 10%. If you are starting to see algae then drop it by 5-10%.

Then just keep upping it by 5-10% at a time until you start seeing algae showing up and then back it off a little. Make sure you give it enough time to really see what effect it is having. If it was me I would give it a week after every change to give everything time to adjust and better see what changes have happened. Remember as plants grow and fill out you may have to adjust it again.

Also with no added CO2 make sure you have good surface movement for gas exchange. With higher light you will burn through the CO2 in the water quicker. Good water movement will help with the gas exchange between air and water and help keep the CO2 at normal levels.

Edit: Photos - I lost most of them when this forum switched to a new codebase years ago. Did find a couple from my first planted tank though.

Edit: Photos, a lot of them got lost when this forum switched to a new version. did find a few from one of my first planted tanks though.
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Bentley has a video for the setup of the 3.0 and basically runs through the same process. He gives beginning values for each white/pink/blue and goes through how he increases each after a time while watching tank reaction.

I don't have CO2, but went through the same process with my aquasky 2.0. Took me about a month of adjusting to find a good balance of plant growth without algae getting out of control. When I adjusted too high it only took about 3 days and algae was everywhere! Just take your time with it and you'll love it.

Here's my current program. Looks weird, but tank seems to be doing well. I bring the lights down mid-day since no one is there. This allows me to have brighter viewing in the evenings and still keep algae at bay. As you can see, I'm no where close to 100%. Plants are growing and I only have to clean the glass every 3 weeks.

 

[noobfish]

Beautiful tanks both of you by the way!

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I would just start the light low like you said and gradually ramp it up. I think the PAR at 12" for the fluval is about 120 (I might be wrong) I would drop the light to about 50-60% which should put it at around the "medium" light level for this tank and spend a few days watching how everything reacts. If plants start to look like they are not growing as well or dying off up it by 10%. If you are starting to see algae then drop it by 5-10%.

Then just keep upping it by 5-10% at a time until you start seeing algae showing up and then back it off a little. Make sure you give it enough time to really see what effect it is having. If it was me I would give it a week after every change to give everything time to adjust and better see what changes have happened. Remember as plants grow and fill out you may have to adjust it again.

Also with no added CO2 make sure you have good surface movement for gas exchange. With higher light you will burn through the CO2 in the water quicker. Good water movement will help with the gas exchange between air and water and help keep the CO2 at normal levels.

Edit: Photos - I lost most of them when this forum switched to a new codebase years ago. Did find a couple from my first planted tank though.

Edit: Photos, a lot of them got lost when this forum switched to a new version. did find a few from one of my first planted tanks though.
View attachment 143810
View attachment 143811

Beautiful tanks, thanks for sharing!
I already have one of the outlets pointing to the surface for some really good agitation, I'll look into getting a little powerhead or something later on tonight the same for the other sidenof the tank.