Lighting Prefferences? (20H)

[Born4spd]

Ive got a 20H and cant seem to keep my amazon swords alive.

I want to upgrade my lighting.

Im searching through big als and all i can find is a dual t5 with 14 watts each (28watts total).... would that be enough for the following plants: Crypt. Lucens, Crypt Balansea, Amazon Sword, and maybe money wort?

Another Quick thing, i have two clip on desklamps (a 26w and a 13w) and my main t8 tube (a 15w) all on my tank.

My tank looks like crap, my photoperiod is 8 hours, my nubias nana is covered in brown algae and diatoms, and i have an entire side of my tank covered in green algae ( looks like a moss wall) and my swords are coverend in this beard algae stuff.

I dont care about the green algae , but i want the beard,brown alge GONE.

I do not want to use peroxide or bleach.

I keep hearing that a diy co2 systen (i was thinking of buying the hagen diy kit with ladder, but eventuall swapping the ladder out with a glass diffuser) will provide the plants with more co2 to help compete with algae?




PS.. How does Algae get in the tank? I know its a life form but does it just POOF appear? Or does it hitch a ride on plants?

[zzyzx85]

In regards to your algae problem...what's your plant/bio load? Adding any ferts?

For a while, I had one of those fixtures you mentioned. I had an amazon sword in there that did okay with that light. I trimmed its old leaves and it grew back new ones. I neglected the tank for a while and the plant didn't do so well, so I got rid of it.

If you're growing what you mentioned above, you should be fine as those are mostly low light plants (except for the sword) and 1.4 wpg is enough for them. Since these are T5s, they are efficient at getting the light down.

If you want more wpg, Coralife also has a 65W Power Compact light, or look for the Current USA 2x24w T5HO or Catalina lighting T5HO.

Now, I have two of the 2x14W fixtures over my 20g (same as yours) for 2.8wpg, and I can grow med. light plants with no problems.

[Born4spd]

I have 4 cories, 7 harlequin rasboras, and a dwarf gourami.

Plant wise i have about 6 TINY swordsand (they started off as big petsmart plants from the tubes, but the leaves seemed to deteriorate so i trimmed them and now i can't get any leaves bigger than 2-3 inches long.) ,an anubias nana, 1 Crypt. Lucens, 1Crypt Balansea, and three stems of money wort.

At one time iwas using seachem root tabs but all the did was cause an algae bloom and it seemed like they had a negative effect on my cories barbels. (the spots where the tabs were seemed to develop smelly bubbles) so i vaccuumed all the root tabs out of the gravel. I then tried some yellow bottle tetra flora bla bla , but it gave me bad algae.

Im thinking I may have to add flourish?

[yourchoice]

I keep mainly Amazon swords in pots for structure.Use seachem root tabs no co2 or ferts(odd time I add micro).1-2 watts per gallon they double in size every 3 months.