DAS 75 Gallon

[tomterp80]

Things that make red plants red:

1. Nitrate levels of about 5 ppm - 8 ppm are best
2. Fairly intense lighting (you may be short here)
3. Adequate Iron..how much are you dosing?
4. Proper light spectrum between 5,000K and 10,000K (you're fine in this department)

My nitrates have been running 10-20ppm, I am assuming that more than 5-8 is okay.

I am not currently dosing any iron directly, though I have the Seachem iron supplement. I have been using Flourish which includes some iron, but perhaps not enough? I am not able to detect any with my iron test kit, but the kit is out of date and I think they degrade.

[tomterp80]

How handy are you, you could easily replace all four bulbs with a smaller reflector and ODNO some T-8 bulbs and get a lot more light into the tank.

What does ODNO translate to?

[krisw]

Overdriven Normal Output Lighting... Aaron did a talk about it earlier this year.

We have a tutorial here:

http://www.gwapa.org/articles/ODNO/

I use 3 overdriven lights over a 40 Breeder, and couldn't be happier with the results.

[tomterp80]

Well given my track record with electrical work, I'm going to avoid the ODNO for the time being! Also, I have to check my ballasts out, not sure what type I have. They are about 8" by 2" by 1.5" as I recall (I'm at work), don't know if you can tell by size or not.

IRON UPDATE - Last night I dosed a capful of flourish iron supplement, and an hour later several of the plants were obviously developing deeper red coloration. So now I have a guideline for how much iron to add. When the plants lose their red, add more iron, else not.

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

Red color is also a symptom of N deficiency. You can bring the red out in
plants temporarily by running your tank N limited. Easy way to do it is
to dose some extra Phosphates - all N gets consumed, plants get awesome
color! Don't keep it like this for an externded period of time or plants will
suffer - but its great for getting the growth where you want it, getting the colors out
and taking a picture.

[tomterp80]

It's a revelation to me that the color changes can occur so rapidly. Maybe I should do a time lapse photography sequence or something.

[Aaron]

It's a revelation to me that the color changes can occur so rapidly. Maybe I should do a time lapse photography sequence or something.

Yes, they can go red literally overnight.