Hey... Last night I was staring at my green box. Actually, it's my 2.5-gallon tank whose sides were *completely* crusted with green spot algae, and inside (if you looked from the top) you could see the hair (or thread?) algae blanketing everything in the tank and pearling :evil: !!! The plants that were still in there were totally covered with green spot, as well. So I considered for a moment the liberating thought of smashing the whole thing with a baseball bat, but remembered that we don't own a baseball bat (at least that I know of).
So impulsively, I started pulling up the pathetic-looking stems of Bacopa and C. pygmaea and proceeded to take down this tank completely. I moved the fish out, I wadded up the algae and threw it in my stash tank for my shrimp to enjoy, and I transferred all of the Flourite into a bucket and washed it with hot water and scraped the green spot off of the tank sides with a razor. Now I'm starting this tank ALL over again.
So here's the deal... I was always the odd one who believed that you could grow MOST plants quite well with an 8 watt normal-output fluorescent light over a 2.5-gallon. The simple reason for this was that it was TRUE for a while. Then it occurred to me, as I looked back, that this changed when I switched out the bulb. I have two 12" All-Glass strip lights. Both came with bulbs included. Both grew many, many plants quite well. When I had to switch out the old bulb on one and went with a Coralife Colormax (5000K, I think), I could see from the start that it was a crummy bulb. Suddenly, I couldn't grow anything, and sometimes I couldn't even tell if the light was on. Then I switched to a Hagen Power-Glo. I liked the look (very blue - 18,000K) and the plants started growing, but then the algae took over. The other strip light is probably on its second bulb (whatever it is), but it's lighting a tank that's not really planted, so it doesn't matter.
Anyway, I'm thinking that there must have been something to that original bulb. So I just went to the All-Glass site and happened to find under "new products" that they're making the lights available, including the 12" 8W one. It explains on the page that the normal-output fluorescents are 8000K; seems reasonable to me. Now I'm on a mad quest for this bulb. It's so weird that all this time, they were manufacturing strip lights but not really making replacement bulbs available to the public - just those screw-in PC ones for their incandescent fixtures. Has anybody else here noticed really good growth with an All-Glass bulb that came included in a fixture, then have things go south when you replaced it with a different brand?
In the meantime, my tank is in "temporary retirement." But as always, the fun part is planning it out... :biggrin:
Sorry for my long story :roll: .
-Naomi
So impulsively, I started pulling up the pathetic-looking stems of Bacopa and C. pygmaea and proceeded to take down this tank completely. I moved the fish out, I wadded up the algae and threw it in my stash tank for my shrimp to enjoy, and I transferred all of the Flourite into a bucket and washed it with hot water and scraped the green spot off of the tank sides with a razor. Now I'm starting this tank ALL over again.
So here's the deal... I was always the odd one who believed that you could grow MOST plants quite well with an 8 watt normal-output fluorescent light over a 2.5-gallon. The simple reason for this was that it was TRUE for a while. Then it occurred to me, as I looked back, that this changed when I switched out the bulb. I have two 12" All-Glass strip lights. Both came with bulbs included. Both grew many, many plants quite well. When I had to switch out the old bulb on one and went with a Coralife Colormax (5000K, I think), I could see from the start that it was a crummy bulb. Suddenly, I couldn't grow anything, and sometimes I couldn't even tell if the light was on. Then I switched to a Hagen Power-Glo. I liked the look (very blue - 18,000K) and the plants started growing, but then the algae took over. The other strip light is probably on its second bulb (whatever it is), but it's lighting a tank that's not really planted, so it doesn't matter.
Anyway, I'm thinking that there must have been something to that original bulb. So I just went to the All-Glass site and happened to find under "new products" that they're making the lights available, including the 12" 8W one. It explains on the page that the normal-output fluorescents are 8000K; seems reasonable to me. Now I'm on a mad quest for this bulb. It's so weird that all this time, they were manufacturing strip lights but not really making replacement bulbs available to the public - just those screw-in PC ones for their incandescent fixtures. Has anybody else here noticed really good growth with an All-Glass bulb that came included in a fixture, then have things go south when you replaced it with a different brand?
In the meantime, my tank is in "temporary retirement." But as always, the fun part is planning it out... :biggrin:
Sorry for my long story :roll: .
-Naomi
. With the Power-Glo, green spot algae was taking over completely. So now I'm scared of having too high a temperature bulb. Would it be a big difference between 8000K and 9325K in the way algae and plants grow?
