new tank needs help

[wahahaha8]

Tank Dimensions (LxWxH): 120 x 45 x 45
Lighting Intensity(No of Watts) : 216 watts
Type of Lighting (FL/PL/MH) : PL
No. of Hours your light is on: 8 hrs
CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : 1-2 bps
Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : tank
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor): reactor
Substrate Used : seachem fluorite
How Thick is your base fert : nil
How thick is your gravel : 8 cm
Liquid Fertilizers Used : nil
Frequency of fertilization : nil
Tank Temperature : 28
Type of Filter (overhead/internal/canister) : canister
Filter media used :
How long has your tank been set up : 3 weeks


Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
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Carbonate Hardness (kh): 2
Total Hardness (gH): -
PH : 6.5
NH4 (ppm): -
NO2 (ppm): -
NO3 (ppm): -
PO4 (ppm): -
Fe (ppm): -

Bioload (Your Fish and Plants)
------------------------------
plants: blyxa japonica, didiplis diandra, glosso, EQ, MM, ammania gracilis
fish: 35 cardinals, 8 cory, 1 angel, 6 otos, 5 SAE ...
State what fishes and plants you have to the best of your ability

Describe your problem :
this is a newly setup tank, guess i make the wrong move of turning on the lights 12 hrs for the first 2 weeks(now reduce to 8 liao)..at first the plants were ok, slowing turning to submerged form, glosso speading... then i added in the fishes and reduce my lighting to 8 hrs... 2 days ago saw the edge of my glosso turning abit brownish, dark green aglae growing on my gravel (luckily couldnt find any on my plants)..but this algae is quite nice..
looked like velvet material.. 3-5 mm high... my MM also is not as bright as 2 weeks ago... any solution to get rid of the algae and make my plants
grow better?? thank u very much...

problem description. If you have picture which could help then please post them

[prec]

i guess its not the amount of time ur lighting is on. IMO, plants should receive 10-12hrs of light with/without a break in-between of a couple of hours. algae dont usually like that break of light in the middle of the day so you may try that method.

n btw with 4.5wpg, you are not using any fertilisers?? OMG! the nutrients will be quickly used up and thus this is stunt plants growth and give algae a chance to boom. make sure your plants are growing v.well and u'll have no algae. do you plant densely?

[wahahaha8]

hi prec,

yah..i plant densely in the first place to avoid algae too... read from books that newly setup tank should not be given any fertilisers in the first 3 weeks.. maybe will try to add in fertilisers later ..