Ligthting and fert questions

DominionDesign

DominionDesign

Just chillin', watching the fish.
Aug 5, 2008
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Jacksonville, FL
I have a 75 gallon planted tank with 1.75wpg (2x 65w smart pac cf 10,000k/actinic), 2-3" of Flourite w 100w heat cables and a Magnum 350 with ceramic noodles for bio. Temp is kept at 80F, amm 0, nitrites 0, nitrates less than 20, PH 7.6, total hardness 250ppm, alkalinity @ 240ppm. Water changes are 35% weekly. There are 12 Threadfin Rainbows, 1- 4.5" Gold Nugget Pleco, 3 Chocolate Kuhli Loaches, 5 Amano Shrimp and @40 Red Cherries. As for plants I have Bronze Crypts, several types of Anubias, quite a bit of Java Moss, Flame Moss and several asst swords. The main focus of the tank are the Rainbows and the shrimp. The plants have done OK but I would like them to do better. My questions are: I read in a post that actinic has no place in a freshwater planted tank, is this due to not being beneficial or to it having a negative impact? I like the look but would I be better off going with all 10,000k or 6500k bulbs? I also have not dosed ferts since I fell in love with the shrimp, what type of fert program would benefit the plants but not impact the shrimp? I want to keep it low tech so no CO2 is used, mostly because I am too lazy to constantly prune. Sorry about the length of the post, any input is welcomed!
 
you really dont have 1.75 cause the actinic bulb isn't beneficial. Either a 65k or a 10k would be fine, depends if you like yellow or white light. I perfer the 10k myself.

For ferts you can try sechem products. you shouldnt be dosing heavily since your have a low light tank and majority of your plants will do fine without adding ferts. Maybe try flourish for trace and excel as you co2 source.

Never had any problems with dosing ferts(dry or seachem) and snails or shrimp.
 
I agree with bks. Changing bulbs would make a noticable difference expecially with the swords. You could add Flourish root tabs for the swords as well. At 1.75 watts per gallon you should not have major algae issues.
 
Thanks, that explains why stem plants always stretched so much. I'll change out the bulbs and try the Seachem ferts.
 
I bought 2 new 65w 10,000K bulbs, changed them out tonight and I hate the color rendition, if 6500K is more yellow I think they would look even worse (to me). What if I go back to the old bulbs and add another fixture with additional 10,000K bulbs?
 
I do a 6500K/10000K mix. It gives me the best of both worlds.
 
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