[hoppycalif]

I'm not sure I read your post accurately, but if I did: a teaspoon a day of any kind of fish food is too much in a 55 gallon tank. A Rena Filstar XP2 is too small for that size tank, and XP3 would be the smallest you should use. You need enough surface ripple to easily see just to be sure you get good oxygen exchange for the fish. You have twice as much light as is desirable for that size tank, unless you suspend that light about a foot above the water, where you waste most of the light in spillover. And, to measure how much CO2 is in the water, read http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...aquarium-projects/32100-diy-drop-checker.html. The CO2 controller will not be adequate.

 

[hoppycalif]

Hoppy thanks,

If you were wondering I do listen and read carefully at times. A part of me makes it challenging to say, screw it anyways, I'm gonna use all 260 watts and find a way to make it work. It's just the stubbornness in me. From what I remember, Somebody else told me the same thing concering the too much light issue. So let's say I raise it a foot above the water and now I have "waste" or spill over (I have the light suspended anyways from a chain system that allows me to adjust the height). I do have 5 other smaller aquariums configured in a way that the light is no more than 5 feet from the 260 watts. From what you're saying hoppy, is it possible that this light can help support the other smaller tanks, for which I do absolutely no dosing or co2? they all contain the same plants as well. This would be great news if such because the other tanks all are using their own light source. I have 60 watts out of 2x T-8 bulbs AND a combined 80 watts from the T-10 fixture, just for the 2x20 gallon aquariums that sit side by side. the 2x10 gallon aquariums have their own 60 watts of T-8 Lighting. All these lights are standard 4 foot length fixtures utilizing the 5600 kelvin lighting from aquarium and lighting stores. Its sounds to me that I'm just wasting electricity...

I'm not sure if the spillover light would be enough for even low light tanks. You would almost have to test the light level to be sure. Just remember that if you get twice as far from the bulb the intensity is only about 25% of what it was before. (The inverse square effect.)