Great info Byron. I was just able to find some great articles you wrote pertaining to plants and the nitrogen cycle. Very helpful indeed. Its been years since I've kept live plants, so my memory and understanding of their interaction with the nitrogen cycle was very rusty. I had the right ideas about what they do, however, I now have a much better understanding.
I certainly didn't realize that there was as much of an overwhelming benefit to keeping plants as there seems to be. It seems that, essentially, keeping plants keeps fish healthy by keeping water parameters stable and healthy. Essentially, my understanding now is that I should not have ammonia or nitrite problems or even nitrate problems with a decent stock of plants and a lower ph.
Thank you indeed. And yes to your last sentence. The fish load is a major factor, as it is certainly possible to over-power the plants' capability. But provided things are balanced, they will remain so unless we interfere.
I did not realize that bit about nitrifying bacteria going dormant in ph under 6.0 either. I added the plants slowly over the past week after using Dr. Tims, so I guess I don't know then if it was the low ph, Dr. Tim's, or the plants conditioning my new tank to its current readings of 0 ammonia/nitrite/nitrate.
This is true. You are creating a decided advantage for the fish by having live plants from day one, and with an acidic pH. I have never "cycled" my tanks, provided I have live plants which I always do, and I have never seen ammonia or nitrite, and nitrate settles out around 5 ppm.
Oddly enough, the first few days the tank was up and running, before adding much of anything, the ph was at about 7-7.5 of I recall. I suppose I should leave some tap water out over night, off gas it to then see its true ph.
There are a couple possible reasons for this, but we do need to know the true tap water pH so your test will give us this. BTW, you can out-gas the CO2 by very vigorously shaking a small container of tap water for a few moments. Saves waiting, lol.
On a separate note, the tank I bought, the guy gave me a very bright Breamwork LED light. I understand that different plants do well in different light spectrums as do corals in Sw etc... I brought the light down to my local LFS and the guy told me that they light is actually a SW light but that it is so bright that it didn't matter and that I would be able to grow anything I wanted because of its output, despite that its technically a SW light that hasmore blue spectrum to it... do youhave any info you could share with me regarding that? I want to be sure I can grow the right plants.
Can you post a link to some data on this light, perhaps from the manufacturer or a retailer? There are two issues here, if what the store fellow said is the case. First, the brightness; if this is beyond the needs of the plants and the nutrient availability, algae will take advantage of the "extra" light intensity. Second, the red wavelength may be minimal; plants need red for photosynthesis, along with blue, and if you have any red or brown leaf plants, they need more red since this is being reflected. It is now believed that green also is important, notwithstanding that it drives photosynthesis very little [see chart attached], but clearly there is something in the mix because plants do seem to grow better with it, all else being the same in tests.
I have always preferred a "cooler" white, which means more blue and less red, and I find that a Kelvin around 6500K provides this. I have experimented over the past six years with various tubes, all in T8 because that is what my fixtures are, and a mix of 6500K such as the Life-Glo along with a higher blue with 10,000-11,000K worked well, or seemed too. I can no longer get the higher K tubes locally, so I now go with just the 6500K and in the generic brands, preferring Sylvania, then GE, then Phillips [I have all three as dual tubes over my three larger tanks]. I do seem to be having much less trouble with algae, interestingly, and since not much else has changed it may well be due to the tubes being more balanced now. Food for thought.
Byron.
