Im Ready to Get a Light

[Cristy Keister]

No, fertilizing plants doesn't make them picky. Either they need it or they don't - it depends on the type of plant and the environment in which it lives.

[ingg]

A planted tank is a vehicle.

You have go karts, sedans, and race cars.

Engines are the lights. Higher light, more horsepower, more finely tuned engine.

Ferts tune the engine. Go karts, low light, no tuning - very basic engine. Sedans, regular oil changes, maybe a tune up and a transmission flush now and then. Race cars, you change everything, every race.

Higher light will potentially demand more ferts, yes. Imbalances is what you are looking at here - higher light allows plants to grow much faster, and when the balance of light, CO2, and ferts gets out of whack, welcome algae to the tank. Make sense?

[ddavila06]

Dang, thanks Dave, makes huge sense, i feel like a six year old i just wish the articles in the web were this descriptive

in the past i have added iron which is said to be one of the most important supplements and since my tank had regular neutral gravel i had to supplement with something. i used excel long ago by itself and never saw any change to good nor bad, i used the tabs in someplants that i put in rocks like the wentii and anubias and seemed to do a huge difference. what are some of the basic most important elements??

[ingg]

Excel was supplying a liquid form of CO2. Since your lights were low, this didn't do much - the engine couldn't use it to go faster.

In a high light tank, it is needed much more - the engine needs to be run. You'll be looking into pressurized CO2 soon, betcha a plant.

Same with ferts - you were giving ferts to plants in a low light situation via root tabs. The plants in low light are typically heavy root feeders like your Wendtii, and that was all they needed.

Now, you will see faster growth. An enriched substrate CAN provide the ferts for the feeders - you were enriching your substrate with fert tabs (this is a tiny version of mineralized soil, sorta.)

Should you start to plant lots of stems like rotalas and hygros, they need to be fed, too....


I'm no expert on water column dosing, I hated it and was too lazy to keep up with it, but the basics are macros and micros - NPK are the macros (nitrates, Phosphates, Potassium), and micros are iron, manganuese, blah blah and on and on. Gotta feed them macros in some form!



Think balance. Light, Carbon, Fertilizers, must be in sync.

This doesn't balance doesn't matter as much in low light tanks, because the engine can't run fast enough to make things go BOOM. In a high light tank... fast engine, big spectacular crashes are possible.

[ddavila06]

ok, good thing i didn't get a solar system of light. i purchased the triple tube one. now i guess you are very right about that whole thing and i know i will probably end up with pressurized CO2 as well but is good that i asked about it from the beggining so i don't go crashing anything.

[ddavila06]

Got my Light today YAY looks really good over the 75, now i see the real difference since i been debating this thing for a while anyhow, my only question is that the fixture is making a weird noise...kind of like Pssssssssss... yeah whatever, i can't really explain, but is it supposed to make noyse? and does it get really hot? a few mins after i plugged it on i swear this thing was so hot. THANKS for all the help

[Ltrepeter2000]

The 4x54 Solar is what is over my 75g. It is about $10 difference.... spend it. Much better to have the extra bulb and not need it than to need it and not have it...

Dave,

I am looking through here and it seems the difference is almost $120 between a three bulb and four bulb fixture on Catalina's website. Hopefully I am missing something on a 4 bulb. Can you post a link to the four bulb you are talking about?

Thanks
Rob

[ingg]

Ahh, gotta grab the special on them... lemme find the last email and will send to you.

[ingg]

48 Inch 4x54 T5 HO Black Solar Hood
$179.99


Two cords, two switches. Two bulbs on one cord, two bulbs on the other. Very attractive glossy black light fixture.
Perforated metal spine adds to this hoods heat sync capabilities.
Each T5 has its own individual German polished aluminum reflector that tripes light output for each bulb.
High quality Advanced ballast - 5 year warranty

Power: 216 Watts
Dimensions: 48x8x 2 5/8

[Ltrepeter2000]

Ok Thanks, They are having phone issues and their message says they will call back after June 5th. I will keep trying to get through. Appreciate the help. That makes it a lot better and worth going for the fourth bulb.

Thanks
Rob