Suggestions for plant light for 8" opening

[dougall]

I have no problem using an XP3 on 2' tanks (not standard dimensions...) It really depends how the water is returned and the resulting flow... not necessarily the overall flow of water.

But yeah.. I'd expect it to be a little overkill too.

I'd also reiterate the need to know dimensions for the tank too.. not just the amount of light is important, but the angle of the emitted light too, will determine how much is covered. if the opening is round.. then something like a spotlight will likely work better than a strip.

I don't see a need for chemical filtration.. unless you do, and seldom use it personally.. but Unless I missed it, knowing exactly what you're adding to the tank for plant nutrients will help. remember plants need more than light to grow... and having too much light is likely to leave them using up all the nutrients you add and then dying because of a need for them or a source of CO2.

 

[WayneN]

Thanks for your nice comments. The moody look is both good and bad. It looks good. It's created by using the spotlights, which doesn't light the background, which is black. But the plants have to be grouped in the center of the tank. Too far off center, and they don't receive enough light.

The Anubias is lightly stuck into the sand. I don't have anything to attach it to right now. I got the Java Ferns from Petco on a coconut mat. The Amano Shrimp made a mess of it, so I cut them off and tossed the mat. I had to rubber band them to a rock for now. They suspiciously look like El Nino instead of Java Ferns but growing conditions are the same for both.

The XP3 doesn't create any problems except for heat raising the temperature. Just with this situation being an acrylic bowl, 16 gallons, average room temperature around 75 degrees, every 4 watts raises the water temperature 1 degree over 3 days. So the XP3 being 24 watts (measured by a "Kill A Watt") raises the water temperature 6 degrees over 3 days. I can't say how much more it would raise the temperature after 3 days, if it would continue rising 2 degrees per day? I had to discontinue the test several times. Because I was doing this while it was hot here, and once the temp got to 86 degrees.

So I got that Cobalt inline pump used in their EXT canister filter. It's only 7.5 watts and would raise the water temperature by less than 2 degrees over 3 days. That pump is weak. It's rated for 210 gallons per hour, but I'd say it only runs 110 gph under the load of the XP3 filter. But it's so weak that it stalls, if a big air bubble goes into it. I have to plug in the built in Rena pump to prime the filter and push out the air bubbles.

Long story about the bowl. But I've had it for years and a glass bowl before this. So maybe 15 years of messing with these bowls. When I got this acrylic one, I made an undergravel filter and used a Maxi Jet 250 power head. It never kept it clean. I added a few mini internal filters and it would still get dirty. Then I found that Cobalt EXT filter with the 7.5 watt pump. I was going to order it, then I remembered I had that XP3 filter in the garage unused from a 60 gallon that I never setup. So I tried it and was blown away by how clean the water was. So I ordered just the Cobalt pump and hooked it up to the XP3. It worked great, except the Cobalt pump is really weak and hard to prime after the weekly water changes. For the out take I connected 2 mini spray bars to a tee connector. Pointed straight up there's almost no current in the tank, even with the Rena pump running.

I then had to combine the undergravel filter with the XP3 to lose the 6 watts from the powerhead, so the total watts would only be 7.5 from the Cobalt. So I connected the short airlift tube to the intake of the XP3. I drilled some small holes in the airlift tube, so maybe 20 percent of the intake would come from above the undergravel filter plate. Because, if 100 percent of intake comes from the undergravel filter, most of the ammonia may be stripped out of the water and this may limit the amount of bacteria in the XP3. Also some of the intake coming from above the filter plate is the only way to filter out the bits floating around in the water. So I run the XP3 on the Cobalt, except for a few hours a day, when I turn on the built in Rena pump to help clean up the floating bits.

This system is very robust. For example, I've forgotten to turn the Cobalt back on, after feeding. Once I left it off for six and a half hours. Twelve hours later the ammonia was .25 ppm. But a day later it was back to 0. I suspect the bacteria on the surface of the sand lived, but the bacteria deeper in the sand and in the XP3 died. So the undergravel filter saved the tank from having to recycle. The biggest improvement to this setup was that I found coarse sand that wouldn't clog the undergravel filter. It's a huge improvement over using gravel.

According to AqAdvisor, the tank is maxed:
6 Kuhli Loach
4 Panda Cory
3 Otocinclus
5 Amano Shrimp (too many because they're eating the plants)

I love this combination of fish, because there's almost no fighting. The shrimp have free range and there's no pressure for them to hide. So they're swimming around and sitting on the sand in the open. They're all getting along, so it's calm and peaceful. I'm lucky to have this tank and enjoy it very much

 

[fishorama]

Very interesting filtration set up. But you still haven't told us the dimensions of your bowl...

I, as a bottom feeder lover, like your fish choices. But a lot of keeping them happy is floor space (swimming area), surface area for gas exchange & water movement for both moving crap into filter & gas exchange. For plants it's more lighting & ferts. I haven't kept Amano shrimp but they "should" only eat dead or dying plant material AFAIK. But maybe remove them ...both for less bio-load & less plant eating, lol.

The "island" of plants in the middle is a "style" of aquascaping...not 1 I've done, but I can appreciate the aesthetic & I bet you fish like it too, most are "crepuscular" (dawn & dusk active).

I'll reread when I'm not making dinner, lol.

 

[WayneN]

Thanks for your replies. The diameter of the bowl is 19.7". The problems are the narrow 8" opening, and the higher the water level, the smaller the surface area. So I lower the water level, when it gets really hot, to be on the safe side. But the oxygen level is usually fine. I had a Hillstream Loach in this tank, and he was just fine. He'd spend the day stuck to the airlift tube near the bottom and he wasn't breathing hard. There was no real current in the tank either.

Since this is mainly a scavenger tank, it looks empty during the day, when the lights are on. Only the shrimp are out and sometimes the Otos. The Kuhli Loaches are hiding and the Cories are sleeping in the back. If the tank were bigger, I'd love to get some Neons. They could swim in circles around the plants and just go round and round the tank.

I think you're right about taking out the shrimp. Today, they destroyed the Cardamine. They ate through all of the stems and the leaves are floating on the surface. There's nothing left of them. I've had Amano Shrimp before with Java Fern and Anubias Nana. They didn't touch the plants, but they were attracted to the wood. They'd sit on the wood and grind it up like little buzz saws. All of these bits of wood would be flying all over. They weren't eating the wood but were just destroying it. Unsure why?

I'm using Flourish Excel just twice a week at half dose. And Flourish and Flourish Trace full dose once a week. There's 3 media baskets in the XP3. The first (bottom) I'm using two API 30 ppi pads, API Micro Filtration pad, generic 100 micron pad and Purigen bag. Second and third baskets are the same: Matrix and Purigen bag. I dropped that API Bio-Chem Zorb, because I thought it might be removing the Flourish. Unsure, if any of this can be improved, but it seems to be working.

Thanks!

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Do you feed your Amanos at all? It's unusual for them to destroy plants.

 

[myswtsins]

A full dose of excel should not cause the fish to scratch, I suspect something else at play there. People dose excel at well over normal levels before seeing adverse effects on fish, shrimp/inverts on the other hand can be sensitive to it.

How tall is the bowl? Or more specifically how far is it from the substrate to the bottom of your light? Can we get a picture of the whole bowl? What is your nitrate reading before a WC? What's the average water temp? Sounds like it is getting too hot, that would certainly kill anacharis. Was that picture taken recently? Cause those plants looks pretty healthy to me. If the light levels were too low the stems would get very long and leggy with small leaves. My guess is that they are starving for nutrients/carbon. If that's the case (which we can determine after we get the answers to the above questions. hopefully) then you can either add more nutrients or cut back the light. To put it into perspective I have 32 watts of LED over a 58g that is 3ft wide and 20 something ins tall, you have 24 watts over a16g bowl that is only spread over an 8" area.

 

[WayneN]

Do you feed your Amanos at all? It's unusual for them to destroy plants.

Hi, yes I feed all of the fish every night with a lot of frozen brine shrimp and flake food that will last all night. I overfeed them to give them something to do all night. But despite their getting all of that protein, instead of low nutrition vegetable matter, every time I see them they're eating. I think they keep eating despite not needing the nutrition. Since they ate the Cardamine, they've eaten all of the fine roots off the main roots of the Java Fern or El Nino and they're starting to eat the Ludwigia. I hate to say this, but it looks like I'll have to get rid of them. Thanks!

 

[WayneN]

How tall is the bowl? Or more specifically how far is it from the substrate to the bottom of your light? Can we get a picture of the whole bowl? What is your nitrate reading before a WC? What's the average water temp? Sounds like it is getting too hot, that would certainly kill anacharis. Was that picture taken recently? Cause those plants looks pretty healthy to me. If the light levels were too low the stems would get very long and leggy with small leaves. My guess is that they are starving for nutrients/carbon. If that's the case (which we can determine after we get the answers to the above questions. hopefully) then you can either add more nutrients or cut back the light. To put it into perspective I have 32 watts of LED over a 58g that is 3ft wide and 20 something ins tall, you have 24 watts over a16g bowl that is only spread over an 8" area.

Hi, yes all pictures taken within day of posting. The bowl is 19.7" tall. The temporary top is just a glass lid from a 2.5 gallon with the lights sitting on top. From the top of the sand to the glass lid measures 15". From the top of the two bunched plants to the lid is 4".

The nitrates are always 0 as far as I can tell with the liquid API Nitrate Test. But I suspect it's between 0 and 5. I can't match the test tube color to the color card. Just like ammonia looks like between 0 and .25 but I know it's got to be 0. But safe to say nitrate is low. I do a massive weekly water change.

The temperature can go as high as 80 degrees. I'm in the Los Angeles area in a valley that gets really hot. Over this past weekend if was over 100 degrees. But before the latest round of heat waves, the average temperature was 76 degrees.

The situation with the lighting is that I started out with two 3 watt LED lights. I had only 8 large Marino Moss Balls at the time. They started dying. So I added a 7 watt LED to one of the 3 watts for 10 watts total. They died. Then I got one bunch of Anacharis. It started dying. So I got a 12 watt LED and added it to the 7 watt for 19 watts total. The Anacharis died. So I got a second 12 watt LED and combined it with the other 12 watt for 24 watts total and got a second bunch of Anacharis. It died. It started out dark green with thick stems. Then it went to light green with leggy growth, then yellow green, then yellow with the edges of the leaves rotting off and the tips turned brown. It was reproducing like crazy with side shoots and was pearling but it was dead. This second bunch I tried adding only a half dose of Flourish Excel twice a week and full dose of Flourish. The first bunch I didn't use Flourish Excel but only use Flourish. While I had Anacharis it was mild temperature here so maybe 76 degrees.

I also tried Hydrocotyle Tripartita (Dwarf Pennywort), Bolbitis Heudelotii (Water Fern), and unidentified bunch plant, which died. The Hygro and Water Wisteria died as well. So only the Cardamine (eaten), the Ludwigia Repens, unidentified bunch plant, Anubias Nana and El Nino appear to be doing ok for now, if I lose the shrimp.

So I'll try to reduce the lighting and increase nutrients. Maybe drop the light to a 12 watt and a 7 watt for 19 watts? And maybe dose Flourish Excel half dose daily with twice a week Flourish and Flourish Trace?

Thanks!

 

[myswtsins]

You've painted a nice picture for us, thank you. I'm sticking with my original guess still, too much light not enough nutrients. (the anacharis probably didn't like the heat though) If a planted tank reads 0 nitrates that means yes the plants are doing their job but they are also on the brink of starvation. But don't change both things at the same time (lower light and increase nutrients). You are more likely to cause extra issues that way and have the 2 zoom past each other instead of meeting each other.

Do you have any algae issues? If not, I think I would try increasing nutrients 1st. Test daily to make sure you have some nitrates every day, that will be a guideline for how much for need to dose for your particular plant load and light intensity. If you are going to be adding more other ferts you want your carbon (excel) to follow suit. So I would do full doses of excel daily. Try it again and see if it upsets the fish (I really think it was coincidental).

If you have algae issues and/or the fish react badly to full excel dosing then I would try lower light intensity. How long are the lights on for? Sorry if it was already mentioned. 6hrs is a good starting point for newly planted tanks while the plants adjust to their new home.

 

[WayneN]

Hi myswtsins thanks for your reply. I try to keep the lights on between 8-10 hours a day. They're not on timer, because, after I turn off the lights, I take the glass lid and lights off to cool down the tank. And there's no algae to speak of. If I don't clean the front "glass," I'll start to see some slight brown algae after around 3 weeks. So I'll increase the Excel and nutrients. I'll figure out the actual water content of the bowl and precisely measure the Excel. I was using the threads inside the cap, but now I'll use a syringe (without a needle) used for cat oral meds that is more precise. And I'll keep the lighting the same for now. Very sad but the shrimp are gone. They were too destructive and I'd never be able to have plants with them. I'll report back in a week with the results from full dosing of Excel and fertilizers. Thanks for your help!