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Poor light distribution?

875 views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  Sympley 
#1 ·
I've had my 90 gallon tank set up for a couple months now, and after defeating an outbreak of brown hair algae, things have been going pretty well.

My light fixture is a Coralife 48" 65Wx4, which I originally had going full blast for 12 hours a day. This resulted in the aforementioned algae bloom. By cutting back to 8 hours and manually removing what algae I could, the algae died off and some of my plants that were languishing have now taken off. However, most of my plants are noticeably growing toward the center of the tank, and anything that I plant toward the front or sides seems to be suffering.

I've ramped the photoperiod back up to 10 hours, but this still doesn't seem to be helping as the issue is apparently poor light distribution. I am considering getting a 6-bulb Tek unit, as it would be a lot wider front to back than the Coralife, so would presumably have better distribution. Also, the better reflectors should get more light down to the shorter plants in the front.

Anyone else think this would be the right thing to do or have another suggestion? Thanks.
 
#3 ·
My fixture is hanging from the ceiling, and I can raise it to whatever height I want. I normally have it raised to about 3 inches from the waterline, and I use a glass top. However, it looks like the higher I raise it, the less light gets into the tank overall, so I don't know if this is the right solution. Also, when the light is too high, it's really annoying to anyone sitting in the room because you can see into the bottom of the fixture.
 
#4 ·
I see you are in the same boat as I am. I just posted similar question with regards to my 90G tank. I also run the 4 x65Watts and I noticed stunted growth on the outside and in corners. I have my hopes set high guys here have great suggestions. I am also thinking the T5's fixtures might do the trick, better reflectors, and wider.
 
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