Lighting, who would of thought....

[jcali10]

Musings of a rookey and new member.
I started my first planted tank on July 15, 2007. A 20G Tall, running DIY CO2, dosing dry ferts and CSM+B and 2.4 WPG T5. Things went well for the first couple of weeks, and then I started having algae, BGA, Stringy algae, fuzzy green algae, powdery green algae. At least 4 different types.
I was manually removing some of it, but it always came back. I did 2 things, and to my surprise, it, (the algae) has really subsided.
1. I started feeding the fish less, I was overfeeding them.
2. Also, gave my tank a little siesta during the middle of the day for an hour and a half with the light off.
There is still some algae in there, but you have to look for it to find it.
I never thought running 2.4 WPG for 12 hours a day could be a problem.

[Aaron]

Welcome to the club.

I think you'd be fine to reduce the lighting to 10 hours a day. Feeding the fish less definitely helps. If they aren't eating what you feed them in a few minutes it's too much.

[jcali10]

Thanks.

I think I am going to do that, 10 hours a day lights on, with a 2 hour siesta in the afternoon.

Also, I have a pair of cherry barbs in this tank and they've been busy, cause now I have at least 10 little cherry barbs in there.

Don't know if anyone would be interested in them if I could manage to net them. I think they are too young to sex cause they all look the same.

[Jeff120]

Duration of light is a huge factor of algae. When I setup or redo a tank I start with 8 hrs and go from there. Between 9-10 seems to work for me. You will even notice some of the plants start to close up, signaling that they have had enough light