New-ish 80 Gallon Planted Tank

[TimmerCA]

Hi,

I've always had a 10-gallon freshwater tank, so I'm pretty familiar with the fish keeping part of a fish tank. About two months ago I was able to upgrade to an 80 gallon tank and I've decided that I'd like to plant it. I got a 216-watt fixture for the tank and planted some egeria densa (brazillian waterweed), two ludwigia (water primrose), and four large and a bunch of small vallisneria spiralis (corkscrew vallisneria), and I keep the lights on about 12-14 hours per day.

I've also ordered some baby's tears, as I hear they are great substrate cover and are very hearty and not eaten by most fish.

Right now I'm seeing a lot of algae on the glass, the wood in the aquarium and also the plants themselves. The local fish shop recommended a few snails, which I've added to the tank and are doing a splendid job of algae removal for me on the glass and wood, but not the plants themselves. I do have one algae eater who cleans the plants for me but he just does a quick cleaning and leaves a lot of algae on all the plant leaves.

I'm worried that the algae on the plant leaves will stunt the plants and eventually kill them off. The egeria densa is growing like a weed, but the other plants seem to be struggling a bit.

I bought the light fixture used from the fish shop. The lighting fixture currently has two daylight bulbs and two actinic bulbs.

So, my questions are:

1. Is 12-14 hours per day of 218 watts of light the right amount for an 80 gallon tank?

2. Since this is a freshwater tank, should I switch the actinic bulbs to daylight bulbs so that I have 4 daylight bulbs?

3. Should I use an algicide at this point, or should I just let the snails do their job and deal with algae on the glass for now?

 

[irishspy]

You're at 2.7 wpg of light, which I'd call medium to medium-high. To be honest, I think you have your lights on for too long, and that's encouraging the algae. I'd cut back to 8 hours a day. Do you use a timer? That would be easy to reset. And don't bother with actinic bulbs; they do nothing for plants. You want lights in roughly the 5500-6700 Kelvin range, which closely mimics the Sun's spectrum, that is, natural light.

An algae problem is indicative of something being out of balance in the tank. In your case, I suspect too long a light-period, but it's also possible the nutrients are out of whack. Do you dose with any fertilizers? How about CO2? What's the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate reading in your tank?

Oh, and post pictures.

 

[TimmerCA]

You're at 2.7 wpg of light, which I'd call medium to medium-high. To be honest, I think you have your lights on for too long, and that's encouraging the algae. I'd cut back to 8 hours a day. Do you use a timer? That would be easy to reset. And don't bother with actinic bulbs; they do nothing for plants. You want lights in roughly the 5500-6700 Kelvin range, which closely mimics the Sun's spectrum, that is, natural light.

An algae problem is indicative of something being out of balance in the tank. In your case, I suspect too long a light-period, but it's also possible the nutrients are out of whack. Do you dose with any fertilizers? How about CO2? What's the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate reading in your tank?

Oh, and post pictures.

Thanks for the response - I had a sneaking suspicion that the actnic bulbs could go! I'll switch them out for regular bulbs.

My amonia, nitrate and nitrite levels are all nearly zero. I do use Seachem liquid fertilizer daily, about two capfuls per day. The recommended dosage is 1 capful per 50 gallon or more if you have a heavily planted tank. I do not CO2 fertilize - I let the fish provide the CO2 (there are about 28 of them in the tank right now, for a total of around 40 inches of fish).

The reason I didn't want to reduce the amount of light is that all the books I've read said that for a heavily planted tank (which is what I'm working towards) the plants prefer 12-14 hours of light per day, which is the same as what they're receive in their natural environment. Is that not correct?

 

[illinidorry]

The more plants you have and the denser the setup you will need that amount of light. But if you have much less plants and there still a little spread out sparsely through the tank, its probably too much light thus feeding the algae. I know some ppl on here have alot of trouble adjusting their lights just right to balance the plant and algae growth.

 

[TimmerCA]

Pictures of the Tank

The more plants you have and the denser the setup you will need that amount of light. But if you have much less plants and there still a little spread out sparsely through the tank, its probably too much light thus feeding the algae. I know some ppl on here have alot of trouble adjusting their lights just right to balance the plant and algae growth.

That's what I figured. I really want a fully planted tank in the end, but I haven't gotten enough plants yet. I'm attaching some pictures here so you can get the idea of what I'm working with.

 

[ESOXLUCIOUSS]

Are they goldfish in there, well all mine loved plants so i might be looking for hardy plnats they wont eat....

 

[TimmerCA]

Goldfish

Are they goldfish in there, well all mine loved plants so i might be looking for hardy plnats they wont eat....

Yup. I know that the goldfish love the plants - they may be moving to a pond at some point soon.

My current inventory is (doing this from memory now):

1 Calico Fancy Goldfish
1 Black Moor Goldfish
1 Regular Pond Goldfish
1 Baby Koi (about 6 months old)
5 Neon Tetras
5 Black Tetras
4 Rainbow something-or-others (can't remember their names at the moment)
6 Platys
1 Something that looks like a Platy, but not quite (slightly larger, longer body)
8 Guppies (About 3 males, 4 females, and a handful of fry)
1 Chinese Algae Eater
4 Snails

As for plants:

2 Red Ludwegia
12 +/- Anacharis
4 Large Grasses (memory is failing me on the scientific name)
6-8 Small Grasses (same species as above)

I've asked my fish store to get me some Baby's Tears as I've heard they're great ground cover and also not many fish like to eat them, and they're good spawning material too. Any other recommendations for a tank like this?

 

[pjrichar]

definitly not enough plants and too long light...cut back hours and plant something tall on other side..