Lighting advice

[JPortRx3]

Hi all,

Hope to get some advice from this topic... I have an aquaone 620T tank.

It's planted with an Amazon Sword.. Marble Queen... a green bushy one and green and white grass (sorry have forgotten the names).

With the exception of the green and white grassy stuff all seem to be growing fine. The amazon sword grows well however has developed yellowish tinge.

Over the past week i have been using a liquid fertiliser recommended by the aquarium shop - 'Plant 24' which i add three drops per day.... I am concerned that both teh lighting and Co2 is not enough.

The tanks 130L and the two light bulbs in the aquaone hood are 2x 14000K/7100K.... im thinking this is not enough... which i assume is a total of 42000K... I heard read aqua plants need about 5000k - 7000k per gallon.... if so i am way under.

Can anyone let me know if my back of the envelope calcs are right? and if so any suggestions on how to increase the lighting using the stnadard aquaone hood? ie different bulbs or other lighting which can be stuck on the top back of tank wall and etc?

Cheers

J

[Noddy65]

Hi J
And welcome..
Totalling up the K rating is a new one on me but there are always new theories coming out about aquatic plants and light.
Usually the K rating is just read as a single number (ie 6500K or 10000 k, or a mix of the 2) you usually dont add them up. In my experince a nice mix of 6500 and 10000 work best for plants but others may differ.
What usually needs totally is the Watts per litre (or gallon depending on which part of the world you come from). Have a look at the tubes, it should have a wattage (W) written on there somewhere. You are after about 2 watts per gallon (again different people have different ideas).
Keep in mind that light is the primary source of energy in plants so it is often the rate limiting factor in plant growth.
There is rarely enough lighting in the all-in-one tanks for really great plant growth except for the more hardy plants.

What sort of CO2 are you using?

Generally the higher the light (ie watts) and presence of CO2 means more rapid plant growth so the need for nutrients (ie. fertilisers) is increased.
The yellowing of the leaves can be due to many things. there is a web resource for determing nutrient deficiency in plants somewhere, you may to use Google to find it.

Try and take a pic of the grassy plants. Many LFS sell plants for aquariums that arent actually aquarium plants. They look green and ok in the tank but rarely grow and will die eventually. Try and post a pic for us.

Mike :D

[JPortRx3]

Thanks I'm from Adelaide, Australia.

Ok thought my totalling up of K was on the dodgey side!

Im currently using no Co2 system - I think that is half the problem. I'm looking to adopt a cheap effective setup any ideas?

I will take some pics of the plants and look at the wattage of the bulbs. From memory the only thing written on the bulbs was 1400k/7100k.

I personally think the tank requires more light - trick is how to modify the tank keeping the existing lights intact.

Cheers

J

[JPortRx3]

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11988

This thread has a recent pic from when i joined up... only plant not included is teh queen marble (which is doing fine at this stage).

Cheers

J

[ikavia]

Hi.... read somewhere potassium deficiency can be cause of yellowing of older leaves. No first hand experience with addigin potassium but. Seachem has a macro nutrient range.

[ILLUSN]

looks like nutriewnt diffeciency either Mg Fe or K get some good root fertilizer (seachem tabs, flora dose, jbl clay balls etc) and add it to the substrate around the sword. also try using a fertilizer such as flourish, flora gro etc. for cheap co2 try a yeast sytem you can make your own for about $10-15 using a 2L coke bottle check valve air tubing yeast sugar and silicone. try this link http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/co2-narten.html