Sunlight on swordplant

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andyjh

AC Members
Feb 18, 2009
574
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Massachusetts
Just experimenting here. I have one of my vintage tanks tucked into a corner in my livingroom, adjacent to a large window. It gets maybe a couple of hours worth of sunshine in the afternoon, and was wondering if anyone thought it might be enough to keep this swordplant going. (far right in the picture). Excuse the stirred up mess I made when planting, but I wanted to give a general impression of how it looks when the sun hits it.
Thx.
Andy

windowtank.jpg
 

BettaFishMommy

finkids make me happy :-)
Mar 17, 2008
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Deadmonton, lol, Canada
Real Name
Sherry N.
i would think algae could become a problem, but if you keep up on water changes/algae removal, and if there is an algae eating fish that you like that would work in the stock list of the tank then it could be do-able. not sure if 'a couple hours' would be enough light but if it ends up being not enough you could always supplement with a light on the tank for the extra light hours needed.

regardless of the light source, i'd tuck a root tab under the sword.
 

Vince G.

AC Members
Dec 27, 2010
340
0
16
Roselle Park, NJ
My tank has a similar positioning...It is acroos from a door with a window at the top and it gets about 3 hours of sunlight a day coming through it hitting the tank while the tank lights are off (about an hour in the morning and about 2 hours in the late afternoon). Initially I put a small blanket over the window part to stop the rays from coming in when I had an algae problem a few years ago. Since I have cleared up the algae problem, I recently folded back a corner of the blanket to allow one ray to hit a part of the front of the tank. As an experiment I planted a piece of rotala sp. mini that I got by accident in the path of the light just to see what would happen, and it took off. I have low light in my tank, and by all accounts, I don't think I should have been able to grow it. I moved it out of the way, and now I have a Water Onion in the path of that Sunlight, and it started growing almost immediately (much better than my 2nd onion plant that is not in the path of the light).

I do have a patch of algae on that one pane of glass where the sunlight hits, but it never gets too big that my bristlenose can't take care of it. By the look of your pic, your tank is getting a lot more sunlight than mine, but if you can control it, I think a little sunlight can be a great supplement to the light in your tank.
 
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