Depending on the size and number of your fish, especially the angels, you may not have to add too much in the way of N. Their wastes will provide some.
What kind of water changes do you do? This will also put some nutrients back in the water. I'd suggest calling your water supply people and finding out what levels of nitrates, potassium, phosphate, calcium, and magnesium come from the tap.
If these numbers are decently high and you're doing 30-50% changes a week you might not have to any fertilizers except a bit of Flourish. Also depends on how many plants you have.
Your light and lack of CO2 will mean slower growth rates. This means less demand for nutrients (fertilizer). The Excel should speed things up a bit though.
My Crypts grow liek crazy in all my tanks after they are planted. I notice the leaves die off sometimes when transplanting, if they look weak I jsut cut them off and larger healthier grow in their place.
I have bad lick with Anubias in all but one of my tanks. It's always the first to get algae all over it and the leaves do not gow fast enough to recover.
It does well in my Fry tank (Eclipse 3 gallon with stock light) for some reason though, in fact tansfering it to the fry tank saved it all the algae disapeard off the leaves in about 4 weeks. it is a very slow growing plant though, I think fast growers are better for starting the tank out...
I also like westeria, it says medium light but it seems to grow in all my tanks as well. A bit slower in the 3 gallon though, but that may be because it does not have flourite gravel. (both crypt and flourite seem to really like flourite) However the crypt grows nice in my exclipse with regular gravel.
I'm sorry to bring up an old thread, but I didn't want to bring up a new one when this thread already pertains to what I want to ask about. I just purchased a 48" 40w aqua-glo light bulb for my 55g tank. The packaging says that it burns at 18,000k, just like the life-glo, but the lux rating is around half of the life-glo. Is the lux rating all that important? Or is wpg a more important method of determining correct lighting for an aquarium? I have one small java fern approx. 9" at the roots from the top of my tank (so half way down) and its been getting light from the crappy 24" bulbs that came with the hood that was on the tank. I had an old 48" hood, so I bought the aqua-glo for it and hooked that up. Should I consider finding a way to hook up a second aqua-glo? Was the higher-lux rated life-glo a better bulb to go for? I plan to get a few more java ferns going and perhaps some java moss too. I do not use CO2, but I do fertilize with Seachem Flourish and do a 30% water change 2-3 times a week. Thank you very much for your input.
I'd find a way to fit another bulb in there, the lux rating on the life-glo may not mean it's any better for plants. Lux measurement is weighted towards light wavelengths that is viewable to the human eye, not necessarily what is most beneficial to plants. I find that if you get enough wattage to meet the general criteria of a low or medium light setting, you can use almost any kind of bulb regardless of K, lux, or lumen rating.
from what rex griggs describes, the lux rating is more accurate than watts per gallon. you want a higher lux rating if possible. i've found from a friends expirience than the flora-glo is too yellow (its around 2500k or so) and just makes the tank look icky. i prefer the Life-glo, which is 6700k, and is a much cleaner, brighter white. i personally use Verilux 6000k on my tank though.
So then wpg really is that important, huh? ****... well, I haven't got the money to get another light bar, nor the money for a glass top so I can set two up on top, but I'll see what I can do in the next few weeks. Thanks again for your input.
look into some shop lights if you are short on cash. You can get a 2 bulb shop light with reflectors for $15 at wally world. That would give you 80 watts or so.
