Ricardo Pinto

In my opinion...it wasn't the only thing that made the tank. The magic touch was when you put the green Lotus. I really love this tank.

Rek

tnks for bug photo

i hope to found Limnophila aromatica in italy, i want t try it

apisto

Yeah, The green lotus is great . And the flowers Awesome

Svennovitch

Hello PJAN,

nice reading! I like your work a lot.

Can I ask you what aqua computers you have on your tank? I see an Aquacontroller, but do you have a Profilux too (under the viewer of your aquacontroller)? Why do you have 2 computers?

thanks and congrats on your n°1 place in AGA 2005! Deserved!
Sven

PJAN

Hello Sven,

Thanks a lot !

Yes, I have two computers.

I bought the Aquacontroler to control the dosing pumps ( on/off) and the pH.
But it couldn't control the dimmable T5 lamps, so I had to buy the GHL Profilux ( old first type ) also
The newer types of the Profilux can also control the Ph etc etc.
So, two boxes and now I can buy just one for all the functions. That's the price you pay for being the first.

Fertilizers :
KNO3
KH2PO4
Profito (complete fertilizer with iron)

Twice a week I dose KNO3/KH2PO4 to get 10-15mg/l NO3 and 0.5-1.0 mg/l PO4. I only measure in the weekend after water change. Dosing during the week is pure a good guess and I'm happy if the water readings are not zero in the weekend. So it's not scientific
But with so much light I try to keep the nitrates rather high ( 15 or higher is good), but sometimes I measure below 10. It all depends of how much (fast growing) plants are in the tank.

The micro's - Profito- are dosed twice a week, normal dosage.

So I am not totally exact on the dosing micro's/ macro's, as long there is enough for the amount of light versus plants in the tank.

My "ideal" parameters :
KH 4
GH 5
uS 190
pH 6.5
NO3 10 -15 - 20
PO4 0.5 - 1.0

CO2 is about 30 mg/l.
Tapwater is very soft overhere and contains no NO3 or PO4.

Yep. Very good spotted
I'm using rather old T5 lamps ( 2 years ) for the pendant. I tried to figur out what kelvin-rate ( 3000 kelvin - 6500 kelvin ) was best for plant growth.
So I bought a good bunch of lamps and tested them all.
To be short : it made no difference and I could have saved me the money.

I preferred the cooler ones so that's what I'm using in the contest-photo's and under normal circumstances.
But one after another the lamps got broken. Maybe of age, maybe because I dimm them two 2% in the evening.
I had to replace them by "old testing" lamps like the 3000 kelvin etc.
And it just happened the day after taking the contest photo's...when I wanted to take also some shots of the surface.
Right now, my pendant has mix of all kind of colors ( 3000 - 6500 Kelvin).

I will not replace them right now, I'm saving my money for the new 965 -T5 lamps. The old were 860 lamps.
The first figure 8 is color reproduction = good
9 = very good
10 = sun - nature (technically cannot be achieved)
The 60 or 65 figure stands for 6000 or 6500 Kelvin.
A 830 has an eight for color reproduction and is 3000 kelvin ( yellow-warm ).
The brand new 965 has a NINE for color reproduction and is 6500 Kelvin.
It should be very good ... I hope.

Regards, Jan

Svennovitch

Hmm, I thought the aquacontroller only could control light and temperature? Does that mean that the Aquacontroller only controls T8 and not T5?

Yep, I noticed you had the older type of Profilux. I bought the Profilux Plus II a few weeks ago, that's where my interest comes from
I am not yet dimming my light (haven't got dimmable ballasts yet, but soon, very soon ) but everything else works perfect, even the moonlight and other gadgets.


I have never measured the conductivity of my tankwater, but I just recently read that it has to be at least 200 uS for the pH electrode. Do you have a special one or does it work with 190uS too, because it is so close to 200uS.


Were the 6000k lamps the older ones? What brand are they? I always read that OSRAM lights have to be used at full power for a small period of time (eg. 100 houres) before you may dim them. Is that correct?

Are you really going to use the 9-series? Don't they have a much lower output (lumen) then the 8-series? Aren't you worried you'll have a smaller amount of light over your tank? But maybe you think you can have a little less light, because you have a real bomb now

One other question:
you say you have 69000 lux above your tank. Did you measure this value? Because if we calculate it: 6*4100 lumen ~ 25000 lumen.
But your area is: 0.72 m²

Lux is lumen per m². This means 25000/0.72 ~ 35.000 lux...

Did I do something wrong?

Thanks for your answers!!
Sven

PJAN

No, the aquacontroler can control also T5, but only 1 program ( 0-100%-0%).
If you want different curves like
11.00 - 13.00 50%
13.00 -15.00 70%
15.00 - 19.00 100%
etc.etc.
You wil have to buy Profilux. Hmmm, so I did.


Yes, I stumbled over the low conductivity problem a while ago. I have to use a special pH electrode suitable for low conductivity.

I use Philips and Osram. Osram has 6000 Kelvin lamps and Philips ( I thought) has 6500 Kelvin lamps. Not much of difference.
They indeed advice you to "burn in" the T5's for 100 hours at 100% to get a better equally dimming result.
The dimming problems ( broken lamps) is caused by age and probably by the fact they were one of the first T5-lamps with not so good gas inside. The gas-mixture ( puriness) is important for lifespan.
I'm told the newer T5-lamps / brands now uses better quality gas inside so they must be better resistant to dimming.

It seems that the 965-lamps have a great output. I will check it ofcourse by buying just two lamps for testing.
And the amount of light is already too much. So I can afford loosing some

Yes, the 69000 lux is measured by a lux-meter, approx 12 cm under the pendant, in the middle with 6 lamps on. 12 cm is also the lowest point for pendant-water surface. Normally the pendant is hanging 15-20 cm above the water surface.

Lux is lumen per square meter at 1 meter distance.......
So it's possible to measure 69000 lux at only 10 -15 cm distance.
And beware : I have very effective relfectors and fan cooled "cold spots" of the T5-lamps which will gain an extra 20 % or so...

Regards, Jan

Dropdeadbob

Hi jan,

A beautiful aquarium aquarium you got there.
i've got two question's for you.
I saw you use also a UV-C filter.
How often do you use the UV-C en what's the mean purpose you use it ?

Best regards,

Dennis Hofstra

Svennovitch

What fertilizers do you use and what are your water readings?

If i look at this picture:

I see in the reflections you use different tubes and not 6x 6000 K. Is that correct? What lamps do you use?

fishdude1984

its my favert tank in the ADA contest this year! i think thats saying alot