Moivng from high tech to low tech approach

[TomFromStLouis]

I now have 3wpg and CO2 injection on my 75g tank. Plant growth has been good enough that I really don't want or need much additional growth - everything that is still alive ;-) is just the right size, so slowing down the growth would be fine.

While I do not have Walstad-style soil under the gravel, my 40% Flourite and gravel substrate is now 6 months old, so maybe I have an adequate nutrient base for extended low tech life. In short, if I keep my aging bulbs in place for a while and limit exposure to maybe 10 hours per day, can I cut back on ferts and CO2 and ease into a more traditional low tech approach? Or will I have too much light that algae will raise its ugly head?

To be honest, I never found the magical balance for fert dosing and even now have algae on older plant leaves as well as healthy growth on the glass that I scrape weekly. So if I slow my plants down, I fear opening a larger window for more algae. But I will only consider such a move after the wisdom of Aquaria Central weighs in. All thoughts welcome, especially if you have specific experience in making this kind of change on an existing tank.

Other facts:
8 near adult angels, 10 rummynose, 3 SAE. considering a few kuhli loaches. Densely planted with Riccia and xmas moss, narrow leaf java fern, crypt balansae, aponogetons ulvaceous and unknown, isoetes, cabomba, hydrocotyle, lysimachia. Eheim canister. 27*C. Nitrates and phosphates and iron all measuring around zero. Less than weekly doses of Flourish Trace and KCl, occasionaly KNO3 and PO4 and Flourish Iron. It is a pretty tank and I would like to keep it as it is now! I would share a picture if I could get my digicam to recognize my computer.

[RTR]

Welcome to the club. I gave up high tech years ago, and to date have not missed it a bit. I have too many planted tanks to do the upkeep on a prima donna - which IMHO is exactly what a high-light, pressurized CO2, chronic fertilizer routine tank is.

I freely admit I cannot grow the range of plants I could when I had CO2, and most of my tanks are much closer to 2W/gal than to 3. My 55 is 2.9, but I cheat and use Excel and other Seachem supplements. Two 30XHs are each 2.7W/gal, but one is a River Tank, so air rather than water for much of its depth, the other I cheat as well just as on the 55 - Excel, a bit of Flourish, and a bit of Potassium, Nitrogen if needed (the 55 is also a plenum). Several of your plants are likely to suffer severely. I can no longer grow Isoetes well, and have never cared for cabomba, hydrocotyle, or lysimachia, so no call on those.

The 3W/gal w/o CO2 is too much light IMHO & IME. For me, 2.5W/gal is the break point. Below that I do almost no supplements past fish feeding and water changes. Above that I have to supplement, but not at high light/CO2 levels. I get glass algae weekly on the two higher light/supplement tanks, all but never on the rest.

I grow mainly Swords, Crinums (both of those requiring root feeding every month or two), Apons (similarly), multiple species and cultivars of Crypts (ditto after the stand is crowded), Anubias, the Javas,and Vals.

Riccia on rocks I don't see in low tech. Floating riccia is one step from duckweed.

Your A. ulvaceous may crash/ go dormant if supplements are withdrawn. I've grown it well with and acceptably without, but never changed techniques on an active plant.

If you are running 40W NOs, can you pull a tube? That would drop you to ~2.5W/gal. To me that is easy management.

[TomFromStLouis]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply RTR. My lighting is 4x55w CF. Since I have a middle row and a back row of lamps, I am not sure how to cut the power to other than half, which would definitely nix the riccia, cabomba, isoetes and maybe the hairgrass groundcover (forgot to mention that). So maybe I am stuck with 3wpg. Does that mean I MUST inject CO2 up to 15ppm or more though? Maybe not. And if CO2 becomes the limiting factor, then minor fert dosing like I have evolved towards is okay....

But balance is everything, right? So I would still have too much light. Hmmm. Keeping 110w on for a while and the other 110w on another time with minimal overlap does not sound like it would work right. I suppose I could buy new 36 watters from AHSupply, but that seems a bit silly. Or just go as I am - I only have the one tank and the workload is tolerable.

If I get another tank, I think I would definitely go low tech. But I confess I like what has evolved the first six months with my high tech tank and admit it would likely not be anywhere close to this awesome without the technology. If I could keep the higher light plants, I would like to just maintain what I have without the rigor. Sounds like I want the high light results without the work though, doesn't it?

I have a crinum calistratum (I told you it was densely planted) and have never root fed. It seems pretty happy for now....

[RTR]

Okay, rub it in... ;) I dearly love dwarf hairgrass, and that is the only plant I really regret not having now. C. calistratum is marginal for me - I can do it in my brighter tanks, but not in the real low-tech ones. But the 55 (my brightest) has the standard Crinum as background, and I don't like the two species in the same tank.

All my tanks are densely planted - but where you have dwarf hairgrass, I have Anubias nana or small Crypts... mutter, mutter, mutter.

You could try staggering the on/off times for the two banks of lights. Keep the same total day length, but chop 1-2 hours off the turn-on time of one set and the off-time of the other. If the extended sunrise/sunset effect does not bother you, it could be a significant reduction in light. That might reduce your load a bit.