My Impression of the Maxspect Razor 420 120watts LED (8000K)

[Henlek]

Thank you for your kind reply. Yes I did a UV and cleared it up in 48hrs including a huge 70% WC. But it seems to threaten to return when I tried to sponge off green dust algae (I think so) on the driftwood and leafs. Its under control somewhat.

As for the lights, I thought the opposite, that red (B) is a dance with algae! And because red makes the tank look so yellow and greenish, that's why I tuned it to 40/60% to balance it. Now that you corrected me, I am going to try it. Thanks for the correction. 36% sounds very low, but your method also sounds very logical and gradual, so its 36% from tomorrow.

I using a Eheim Pro 3 2075 connected to a chiller, output a big lily pipe, plus a 200l/hr mini powerhead midway inside the tank. With these, I was confident that my flow is good. I can see the Co2 bubbles going all over the tank and the drop checker is a lovely lime green. Its a mystery I get all kinds of algae. This leads to your next question.

Tank was newly flooded 2 weeks ago after 2 months of DSM. I suspect that the New Amazonia soil harboured the algae during DSM and bloomed after flooding, including high levels of organics released. My PH is below the reading of my API test kit, surely less than 6, highly acidic till now. There are no live stock in there now, nothing may survive. But my water test seems ok.

Today's reading: Ammonia/Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20ppm, PO4 0.5ppm, KH 4gkh, GH impossible to get a reading.

Plants: Vallisneria, Amazon Swords, Cryto Parva, Java Ferns, Hygrophila Corymbosa, E. Tenellus , Mini Hairgrass and a half dead lawn of HC Cuba.

[David]

Most if not all your plants are root feeders and not water column feeders. Either cut your water dosage by 2/3 or introduce stemmed plants like the Hydrophlia Polyspmer (wrong spelling I am sure..) Rotalia Indica or roundifolia...this will take up your Nitrate and Phosphate. Just don't forget to dose the K.

I don't know how bad is your GW but it is advisable to change filter wool and rinses your filter.

As for the lights, do equal percentage for both A and B. While 36% sounds low but don't forget that your 160watt is alittle of an over kill and the watts per gallon does not really apply to LEDs.

If you like, you could start at 38 to 40 but I rather stay conservative at 36 as your tank has a height of 45cm and taking into account of the overlaps. Observe your plants for photosynthesis bubbles especially for the lowest plants which is your foreground.

[David]

@tropic...I think I more or less understand where you are coming from...I think....

[Henlek]

Too right, didn't consider the plants, blindly following EI. I would try the Hydrophlia Polysperma. K I covered with Seachem Potassium during Marco days along with Nitrogen and dry Kh2Po4. GW was as bad as my avatar. Filter was overhauled after UV as you mentioned, purigen added too. This morning seems slight green again.

Has to be the lights! Honestly I was blasting the razor happily at 85% for 2 days after flooding, contributing to my algae mess now. This is in big part due to my lack of understanding of LEDs. I did some basic calculations and 40% both A&B should have been my start point. No forum says anything on how to use the razor properly till now as opposed to the traditional T5HOs. High powered LEDs is not for everybody, unless you know what you are doing. I didn't. Thank you again for the info.

[milk_vanilla]

Most of built in dimmable lights, usually are high quality made one. 100% power blast will give significant big par result, unless you know what you're doing. My dimmable (not razor) also give tremendous result, my max output is 60%. Even with EI and lime green co2, I could see minor gsa on my bottom glass. So my best output so far is 50 -55%. With height 40 cm above the surface

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[milk_vanilla]

And another trick is you shold get your DC lime green when the light is kicked in. Not something in the middle of your light period. However we won't get the immediate result with DC. So your trial and error and observations are crucial here, and itakes lot of time. But this is where the most fun part of the hobby

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[David]

Hi milk...the only other dimmable lights is either a GM or Mitras...unless you bought the mother of all lights...ATI...

[David]

Henkel...don't be too hard on yourself. In this hobby, it's partly science and mostly art. No one can give anyone definite answers to questions as no two tanks are the same.

The forum and the community within the forum can only point a guideline. The rest is up to the aquarist to use the information and adopt it wholesale or modify it to suit his or her tank condition.

It is through experience gain from tears that I for one will always start with 50% of manufacturer recommendation and work my way up to the optimal point that suits my tank condition. Of course optimal points will change over time as plants and fauna grows.

When I first got my razor, I underestimated its ability and for once, forsake my better judgment and went 100% and paid the price for it.

One thing is for sure is that you have to solve your lighting output of which I have shared with you how I did it and based on my own tank as the benchmark I did some calculation and judgement call according to the variant of our tanks and light specs that I came to 36%.

As for your thread algae, may I suggest that you want to cut down and/or stop you N and P dosing and stick more to K. Unless you add stemmed plants.

Why do I say this? It is because I see your NO3 and P reading is alittle high and I will add a few percentage more. This is because reading varies depending on where you took your water sample from and at what time did you take it.

Normal we just scoop the water sample from the top of the tank, no? Reading differs from the bottom to the top of the tank depending how much muck is accumulated at the bottom. The next time, observe where the algae is growing in the tank. There is always a level that it's rampant. Just like how green hair algae loves to grow on top of mosses ...this is because muck has accumulated within the moss and not been cleared.

Timing when sample is taken is important. During lights on and plants are photosynthesizing, NO3 and P reading will be lower as compared to hours after lights out period. While it seems insignificant, the difference between failing at 49 marks and passing at 50 marks is 1 point.

Another factor that some aquarist ignore is the filter. NO3 and P can be manufactured from the filter and pumped back into the tank if the muck accumulate in the filter is not cleared for a long time. Observe the next time when you don't clean your filter and the water flow rate starts to slow down...if you have a rainbar you will see beautiful BBA growing on the outlet holes.

Most will disagree with what I am saying or suggesting. This is just to share with you my experience and experiences of aquarists now long left the hobby.

[milk_vanilla]

David, it's seen on my avatar lets back to razor talk

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[Henlek]

And another trick is you shold get your DC lime green when the light is kicked in. Not something in the middle of your light period. However we won't get the immediate result with DC. So your trial and error and observations are crucial here, and itakes lot of time. But this is where the most fun part of the hobby

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Hi milk, no contest. It is my poor understanding of LEDs. I made a big mistake of calculating wpg on the razor, hence giving all algae a good holiday. It's now down to just 36% and monitoring as prescribed by David. Before, I used regular T5s on other tanks, never had such a big headache. Maybe someone can help to put a sticky on how to tune them properly.
As for CO2, yes it's turned on an hour before lights, off an hour before lights off. Thanks milk!

[Henlek]

What a wealth of info! Thank you for sharing and writing all the details, printed it out to digest, I am sure I can use some points or rather most of it. I also remove all the ferns and got 3 pots of Hydrophlia Polysperma as stem replacement.

Well now I am beginning to feel bad that I hijacked this thread to chat about my algae and earned lots from it. Sorry readers...

But then again, if everybody kept mum of what a product's misuse might lead to, nobody would learn from it. Anyone reading this, especially those interested in buying a razor or higher, please study this thread and don't ever go about blasting it at 100%. Because 100% you will get algae.

Overall, the razor is really damn razor thin and a fantastic product I feel (so would algae if you did what I did), just that the stupid fans are blowing downwards when they kick in. What the fish man?

Thanks a great deal David. Else I would still be wondering.

[David]

Hello Henkel, again I am saying don't be too hard on yourself. You are not hijacking the thread in any way and I felt it is good that you shared your tank situation where most would shy away from sharing for whatever reason.

Basically, high powered LED is in its infancy stage and not everyone is exactly sure about it. I for one at some earlier point detested LED. If it was not for a blown MH, I would have never tried LED.

In fact the whole fraternity of aquarists should thank Razor for bring this technology to affordable prices. It was our own lack of understanding that brought about our situation of which I shared in my journey thread and this one.

Blasting the Razor at 100% does not assure algae. It all depends on the tank dimension, height of suspension, age of the tank, type of plants and fertilizing regime.

I feel so sad that you got rid of your ferns for the Hydrophlia....did you get the normal one or the one with white vein markings on leaves? The latter is not easy to find. I think there is a third variant where the leaves are narrower.

The fan blowing downwards is irritating...hahaha!!!

[David]

PS: please do observe for photosynthesis. If you see none that you normal would over 2 days, bump up your percentage by 1 point and observe again for 2 more days. Keep bumping till you do.

[Henlek]

Thanks David! As the thread was for Razor, I felt bad page 3 became algae. However I wanted to sound out that when one jumps ship to high powered LEDs such as the Razor, he must be knowlegeable enough to operate it, not just how nice and efficient they are, else it could become a potential disaster. Many years ago, it was just sand, then came all kinds of aquasoil, bringing in a whole new world to us and some people struggled. Similarly, in a generation of high tech LEDs, the lesser informed will struggle again. Perhaps 20 years down, some sort of nuclear powered lights will arrive, people will again struggle. Going high tech means our brains must keep up unnaturally, somethimes messing up ourselves (myself, not all of you, peace). Diana Walstad would murmur "serve you right".


But since we don't like to put our tanks near the window, the Razor comes in and no doubts is one very very good and affordable machine compared to chunky MHs. The Razor produces minimum glare, minimum light spills, all the energy appears to be thrown directly into the tank. Go ahead potential owners! Start low if you have never heard of par. You can get cut by the *razor*.

[Henlek]

I feel so sad that you got rid of your ferns for the Hydrophlia....did you get the normal one or the one with white vein markings on leaves? The latter is not easy to find. I think there is a third variant where the leaves are narrower.

The fan blowing downwards is irritating...hahaha!!!

(Now worse, plants ) I'm not sure, looks like the whole leaf is pale green completely and surely not the narrow type as it looks ordinary to me. 12 hours into poking them in, the leaves seem to whiter a little... maybe shock. I put the slow ferns into another tank, no massacre.

[David]

Picture please and how are the rest of the plants reacting to 36%?

[Henlek]

Oh no picture? My tank is disgrace. All kinds of problems and torn down plants because of all the algae science has known. When I get back home later, I will take a pic of the nightmare.

[David]

It's okay...we all have been there before. More importantly is are there any photosynthesis at 36%

Perhaps a new thread so others can contribute?

[Urban Aquaria]

I've been following the latest discussion with keen interest, maybe i can share some observations on it...

I noticed that Henlek's high-tech tank is around 40 gallons, and at the suggested 36% of 160 watt Razor LED lights (8,000k), which i assume works out to 57.6 watts, results in 1.44 watts per gallon (wpg).

My current setup is running 20+ watts LED (also 8,000k) in a 17 gallon high-tech tank which works out to only around 1.2 watt per gallon. I still get pearling and healthy plant growth, and yet have very little algae issues. But if i add more lights, algae starts to become a problem again.

Maybe we are starting to see a pattern here... perhaps the watt per gallon rule could still be used as a base reference for LED lights, just in a different "ratio" compared to florescent T5/T8 lights. Assuming there is optimal levels of nutrients and Co2, it seems a range of 1-2 wpg could be considered the ideal range for LED lights which is not too strong yet not too weak.

[David]

Hi UA...you could be right...I am doing about 1.7 watts per gallon just that my tank is 60cm in height ...less gravel and base feet about 56cm