I Have 75 Watts Over 10 Gallon. Too Much?

I have 45watts oven my 10 and the glosso never grows vertically. It always just creeps along. So far I have not had any trouble lighting wise growing plants, although I have never tried soem of the so called soft water plants that require lots of light, Toninas for example. In this tank my Hottonina palustres grows over an inch a day. To be honest I have been thinking lately of switching my groundcover to a plant that requires a little less light and a lot less maintance. As for your glosso issue, try Greg's advice but also check that the CO2(30ppm) and NO3(>5ppm always) levels are good. HTH

I don't have a reflector for mine. I meant to paint the hood white but never got around to it. The bulbs are about 6 months old now too I really think their problem lies in ferts. There is another post where I got into that more

My fertilization is pretty good, around 5ppm of nitrate, 1 ppm of phosphate. I also add potassium, a little bit of iron and Flourish for micro-nutrients

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Could you be a little more specific about how you dose? Do you mean you maintain 5ppm or that you dose 5ppm and how often. Lets say that my 10 gallon with 45watts and CO2, last week I added 35ppm of NO3 and there was not much left to spare. I dose 10ppm at the wc, 5 mid week and a total of 20ppm more dosed daily at approximately 2.6ppm a day. I also dosed about 3ppm PO4 throughout the week. I still was showing some signs of NO3 deficiency hence the 5ppm added mid-week. A healthy high light/CO2 tank can use 4-5ppm NO3 a day, especially in the presence of sufficient PO4.

lamthuyduong,

Since you only have Glosso and riccia in the tankthere is really no reason to run your water column lean. Lean conditions are usually done to bring out colors, like hte reds of Ludwigia repens. IN this case there is no color to bring out so I would recommend that you try to maintain a bit more NO3 in your tank. Dose 10ppm at the wc and another 5 or 10 mid week. I think you are fine with your PO4 and trace dosing, especially for now. Are you absolutely sure your CO2 levels are good and can you test for NO3? Co2 is probably the most important to the glosso, along with light, so make sure your levels are ~30ppm. If you can test for NO3, try dosing 10ppm after a wc and then test mid week, if the levels are below 10 dose enough to bring it back up to 10. A littel more No3 in this case won't hurt anything. HTH