Lower light ADA tank, you do not need high light!

[valice]

I am starting to appreciate low lights with ADA system.
Currently experimenting with a 2ft (1.5ft high) tank with only 48W of T5HO with high CO2 but low fertilisation... Or should I say, nearly no fertilisation at all. Just crap from the fishes and high feeding by my mum.

After two weeks of zero fertilisation, I have good steady growth. Zero GSA, zero GDA. I am loving it! Contemplating whether to still tear the bloody tank down to do a rescape. But my substrate is ADA soil.

Starting to appreciate the beauty of slow growth now...

[zenscape]

Tom, I looked hard at the rotala green in your picture and they actually "crawl" abit at the top and it looks really nice. Previously I tried about 1.5 w/gal and my rotala was as straight as a bamboo and very unsightly. In my case, I could only have this lushy rotala effect once my tank hits the mega high energy 4 w/g threshold.

Agree with you that low light tank has little or none of the algae issues and high light is a nightmare like what i am struggling now..

[illumnae]

For a low light tank, how do you keep your rotala from being bald at the bottom? i'm running on 2wpg no dosing no co2 and my rotala is very bald at the bottom 1/2 of the stem

[Jungle-mania]

If you space out your plants about a finger's width apart or 1 cm at the least, it reduces balding at the nase, but it does not remove it completely. Coincidentally you get better leaves growing out.

[zenscape]

It is quite impossible to avoid rotala from turning bald at the bottom. The low end of stem plants also need light. Consider this:- If the top of rotala is forming a canopy of bushy stems, there is no light penetrating to the lower end. No light and no life and the leaves wither in no time.

Rotala is not so obvious. My MM would uproot by itself after 3 months . Same theory applies.

I guess the only way to prolong your scape or plants is to trim it periodically so that bottom ends share enough light to grow longer.

[Shadow]

o.... no wonder my MM/HM uproot itself also after awhile, I though that I did something wrong.

[blackBRUSHalgae]

Rotala is not so obvious. My MM would uproot by itself after 3 months . Same theory applies.

I totally understands and agrees with you ^_^" HM or MM doesn't just lose their leaves without light, their lower stems would just rot away. But luckily and suprisingly they could flourish with water roots (their roots not being rooted into the sediment)

my old setup which I needs to trim my plants every single week. And do take note that my half of my HM are actually "floating." They are so compact that there are almost no light at the bottom of that bunch. But they do have good root system.




BEFORE TRIMMING






AFTER TRIMMING


oh yeah! low light system is definitely wonderful! less worries and more play time

[Plantbrain]

For folks with significant bioload/fish load, you can get away with much less ferts (if that is your goal) as you use less light.

Not a bad deal.

That was the old advice really, from the days before PC lighting etc, folks could only manage to add 1.5w/gal or so on their tanks, there where no other options really for higher light.

So the advice back then was allow the tank to mature with fish for some time, use the dirty sand or perhaps soaked soil, then the fish should provide most of the nutrients needed.

The Dutch had a lot of PO4 and NO3 in their tap water, so they liked water changes also.

As we added progressively more and more lighting, the dosing started requiring KNO3 and KH2PO4 etc as well as more traces and more CO2.

If you wanted slower growth, assume that "less is better and makes the most logical sense in terms of chosing what to reduce to slow growth.
You can reduce growth via CO2 and or nutrients also.
Regards,
Tom Barr

[vinz]

Actually, I really wonder size tank the old 3WPG guideline was based on? Seriously, that guideline does not scale proportionally to very small tanks and very large tanks.

In my experience, large tanks can do decently without achieving 3WPG. On the other hand, very small tanks have to exceed 3WPG for the same plants to do well.

Still, I agree in general, we don't need 'high light' to get good planted aquariums.

Plus, in hot humid Singapore, less heat is always better! I think higher temps here do affect the plant health quite a bit... if nothing else, it's not optimal.

[grey_fox]

Yup, I'm at 1.4wpg and the plants are doing very-very well.

[Shadow]

Maybe should change it to Watt per feet depth. Because isn't that what matter? The amount of light that able to penetrate and reach the bottom surface.

[Aeon]

WPG rule is flawed. Depth and Surface should be calculated instead.