hitting the nasty point of the learning curve..

howdy guys, I am actually pretty stoked to have found this website today... I have been reading for the past 45min or so and have been lovin the info/tanks on here. Some of the tanks posted are simply amazing. But now I am asking for a bit of advice from you guys so perhaps I can put my tank up for tank of the month one day.... here goes

I have a 20gal high w/ dual 6500k 20w compact flourescent lights. To hold in humidity I have a piece of glass which covers approximately 3/4 of the top of the tank (this sits on top of the screen lid). On the bottom of my tank is approximately 3gal of water pumped by a small 40gph pump and heated to 78f. I have java moss, unk orchid and unk vine on life support, lucky bamboo in water, dragon scale fern starting to die back, money wort growing on the water, and a java fern in the water. all land plants are epiphytic(or however u spell it, im at work.. lol)

Since I added the second light (I had 1 27w 6700k light before) I have been overrun with a nasty black algae/fungus which is just destroying my tank. I believe this is due to excess heat/light. My temps now approach 81-83f at the top. I am forced to cover my tank more and more with the glass which is killing my airflow and also serving to raise my temps even more.

How do i hit the proper light/airflow/temp without rearranging my entire tank? Also, how do I kill the algae? I am thinking of taking out all damaged parts and poss scrubbing with vinegar(I do the vinegar part anyway on the glass)

I was thinking of installing a two bulb t8 setup on top? Perhaps dual 15w 6700k bulbs? This would reduce the heat generated by my cfls and thus would allow me to open up my glass again without drying out my air too much. I am also going to re-do my background before my frogs arrive with more eco-earth.

I realized I kinda just threw all this crap up... but I am almost to my whits end. The guy I bought the tank from said it would all be okay the way it was previously, but the single 27w cfl was simply not enought light across the WHOLE tank.. too much right underneath and too little on the edges.

thanks in advance for simply READING this thing.. and I'll get some pics as soon as I can.

I guess perhaps I should say its a paludarium? I really need to get home and throw a pic or two up prolly.. viewed from the front it looks like a shallow creek w/ a steep bank/roots. I have my outlet pushing the water from one end to the other.

The tank has been up since october and was doing decent(needed more light though) until I added the extra light. The light has helped my aquatic/bog plants out, but wreaked havoc on the land. The fauna is: three tiger shrimp and a clown peckoltia in the water. Frogs were ordered about 3weeks ago(due in two weeks) and are going to be a pair of starry night african reeds

OKay.. I have photos now but I can't find my digi camera cable. If its not one thing, its another right now. Thanks for your guys help so far.

Ohbly, I mist the tank once a day in the morning with R/O water and I "supplement" my plants/moss with some water from the "stream" part of the tank a few times a week. Where would I find a waterproof fan? are they pc fans, just waterproof? I did a google search and I came up with some GIANT cooling fans, but nothing small.

So you use 20watt cfl's? Mine are not the cool high-tech fish type ones, they are GE I believe. The curly ones. With your advice I am thinking of maybe getting my glass rectangle cut a bit and then when I sit my lights on top of it I will place small objects(not sure what yet) for them to rest on. That way I can have one fan blowing the hot air from underneath the lights away from my tank. My second fan would then go in the corner of my tank and blow lengthwise across my tank. I am beginning to think that my orchid may just not work in the current setup. Perhaps a bromeliad would be a better choice once things get settled in?

Photo!

so that is my tank... Hopefully that helps. If you could see it now, you could see that it has since gone tremendously downhill. Less dragonscale, that vine in the foreground is dead(any ideas what it was?), and the orchid on the right is dead. The orchid in the upper mid is hanging in.. barely

sorry for the ugly pic

Ohbly,
So perhaps the hardware on my setup is okay as-is? I am still thinking I may throw a fan on top, at least to try it out. I am going to attack the algae/scum in my tank tomorrow by removing all the infected moss and scrubbing many of the surfaces. I will also try and use silicone to attach some new, un-infested eco-earth to the background.

I will head over to trader joes (yes, the grocery store. A local garden store recommended their broms) next week and try to pick some up. I am assuming that in my tank I will be wrapping the roots in sphagnum moss and then attaching some sort of tie to the background. What kind of humidity sensor do you use if any?

On the philodendrons.. can they be grown epiphytically? If not, I am thinking that I will stick with two or three broms, try to bring my orchid back, dragon scale fern, and java moss.

ps yeah, the water feature is the bottom of the tank.. approx 3gal of water.