More light = more algae??!

Mulla

Mulla

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May 16, 2003
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Hi all,

I've always had a 60w CF 5000k over my 55G planted tank. It's got about 15 plants (sorry don't know their names but could provide pics if required). I've NEVER had any problems with algae.

I used dupla products for ferts Duparit K (the balls that you put inside your gravel and forget about for years). Duplapant tabs when iron contents gets low according to test kit. Duplaplant 24 daily. I don't have co2.

The plants show healthy growth and are doing great.

Someone decided to give me a 4ft hood and I went out and grabbed a philips 40w flourscent for it 6500k rating.

Once I installed this huge amounts of algae starts showing up!! Green + black beard algae on glass and some plants. Spot algae (the green difficult to remove stuff) on the glass.

Now I was wondering if that's because I have excessive light in this tank now? Should I go and get more plants? I don't intend to do co2.

Any suggestions? Should I just switch off my 40w to see what happens?
 
If I'm reading right you have both the 60w and 40w light going on your tank. If so that puts you right near 2 watts per gallon. I'd say more plants would probably help your situation since you don't want to use co2. Other than that I can only say go back to the 60w light only.
 
Hound: Yes that's right. I've got both going at the moment. I have to clean the stuff off the glass weekly when I do the water change. Guess it's time to do a bit more gardening! For now I guess I'll leave the 40w off till I get more plants.
 
You need some real fast growers like stem plants to absorb everything so algae doesn't thrive (basically). 15 plants in a 55 gallon is not much.

Some good very fast growers that I recommend are: rotala indica, ludwigia repens, limnophila ambulia, egeria densa, and hygro species.
 
Thanks Captain Hook, however, your advice was a little bit late as I've already went out and got myself an additional 20 plants!

I did get some ludwigia repens, water wisteria, twisted vallis. Hey at least I picked 2 out of 5 that you recommended.

Now hopefully that would put a stop on the algae. I've left my 40W off still hoping the algae would die off before I switch it back on.
 
Good move getting more plants. I am big fan of corkscrew (twisted) val myself.

The new plants will probably take a few days to get settled and start growing nice but once they do that should help a lot.
 
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