i dont think ur plants will fry unless u place them on a frying pan but you will most likely need co2 and you might have no control over the algae as they will rapidly come ....
I had that light in 2 versions. 20" on a 10 gallon and 24" on a 20 high. I think you will need ferts and C02. You could try toning down the intensity by using one or two layers of window screen if its too much.
I run the aquaticlife fixture on my 55g. It sits 21" from the substrate and I daily dose excel and still needed to run 1 layer of window screen to cut down the brightness due to BBA outbreak.
Since you not going to run any co2 at all, and substrate is much closer, you may need to run 2 layers of window screen like speedkilz suggests.
Since it is a CRS breeding tank I was thinking if it is the green algae, they'd munch on it and it would be a good thing for me.
BBA is not too bad a problem for me seeing as my ramshorn usually eat it up. My only real fear would be hair algae lol.
Also, is CO2 dosed primarily to increase plant growth and prevent algae outbreaks? I ask this because I worry giving my plants high light without CO2 will kill them.
Is CO2 recommended just to prevent algae? If so, I will not be risking my livestock/breeding to just prevent algae.
and how much ferts do I need to dose? All I really do for dosing is put root tabs into the substrate... am I going to have to dose Seachem flourish comprehensive? How much and how often?
I thought I would not need to dose ferts because my plants are undemanding in terms of nutrients...
Thanks again for reading. Clarification would be greatly greatly appreciated.
I will also look into using a black window mesh of some sort if I do come home to a massive algae problem.
This is only my personal experience and some people won't like it but here goes -
I had two of these fixtures on low tech (no real fert regimen, no CO2 or excel dosing) and I got bad algae on the surface of everything. Plant leaves, rocks, etc.
What I ended up doing (because I am lazy and because I was more worried about my shrimp than about plant growth) is that I tossed in enough floaters (frogbit being my favorite) to cover a good portion of the top of the tank.
This probably cut the visual spectrum of light hitting the substrate in half. I never bothered to measure PAR.
Between the floaters blocking light from the tank and the floaters sucking up nutrients like crazy (and not needing much CO2 since they have access to atmosphere) my algae problems went away pretty quickly and never came back.
The downside to this method is that it can make getting good growth of rooted plants difficult since the floating plants outcompete substrate level plants so easily in this situation.
There is probably a way to manage a balance of sorts but I never bothered to try.
i am running one on my 10g 24in light. my bulbs are one 10k and a ATI Blue plus bulb with no algea problems. pic is attached to show no algeo i only dose seachem products when ever i remember
I think I will add floaters that are non-invasive like frogbit or water lettuce for safe measure (and I don't have stem plants so I see no negatives to this solution).
We'll see if I run into any algae problems when I return back to my tank in 3 weeks.
If floaters do not work, I will also implement the window screening idea.
I run the 6 bulb 48" version of that light 31 inches from the substrait. I only run two of the bulbs though so it would be the same as your fixture. Expect the potential for all types of algea, Its a very strong light. I ended up high co2, high fert and I have frogbit and lilly pads covering the waters surface to help cut the light also, but i have ran the full spectrum of algea. I have a few tufts of brush algea on the back ground left. For me changes in lighting you can see results good or bad with in a 24 hour period where CO2 and ferts results take more time.
im using that same light, with two layers of window screen to diffuse and tame the light. click the link in my signature to see my tank and its progress.
I use tap also...but same light fixture being the only thing in common will not determin algea or no algea, unless we all had exact same water fish load, ferts co2 we could say it was too much light, my case was too much light, I could have put more CO2 in the water but I want to keep my fish alive.
hey now I have a question concerning algea. I have an aquaticlife T5ho 30" on my 20 gal L I have a clear glass canopy and the fixture is 3" above the clean cover. I use 2 mil of excel daily. and the regular seachem schedule of iron, potassium and the regular flourish. The light is on 8 hours a day. I've got 1 oto in the tank. You'd think I'd have algea but I don't. How come? It couldn't be that measley little bit of excel daily or could it?
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