Algae Grower Extraordinaire (With CLOSE-UP PICS) - Page 2 - Algae

genetao · 10-31-2009, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mudboots

Funny enough, I CUT BACK THE LIGHTING!!!

Which begs the question, "Why on Earth stick that much light over a 10 gallon npt?" to which I have no answer.

It had something to do with a lack of reflectors and comparing coiled bulbs to a set of T5-HO fixtures (over the 125 npt and the 20 gallon terrarium). I had some kind of bulb that came with the fixture called a "Plant Grow" incandescent, but even with 2 15watt bulbs it looked like a cave, which is what caused me to increase the wattage.

The plant grow bulbs usually has lighting focused in the blue and red wavelengths, which the plants prefer. However, because it's mostly missing light in the green wavelength (which is largely UNUSED by plants), it seems a lot darker to your eye, but to the plants (and algae) it's still quite a lot of lighting. If I'm correct, that was the mistake made by a lot of owners of the Solaris LED lighting system. The lighting seemed somewhat dark to their eye, so they cranked up the lighting. In the end, they were baking their corals.

But if your tank is doing well without any algae growing, then more power to you. Good luck with your tank.

armedbiggiet · 11-06-2009, 08:25 PM

trimm off the plants with algae than figure it out one at a time. Your lights are strong but I think you can start reduce the fert first. Alot of the plant glow bulbs are for none aquatic plants so there kelvin should be different and that is why they look dimmer.