[_endgiggles]

After 2 years and tears, I was finally able to get my Fluval 3.0 light adjusted properly to where I am no longer an algae farmer and properly growing all of my crypts! I read a ton of reviews on how this light is extremely barbaric overkill, which it is, but if you dumb it down to the bare minimum it will work wonders! All I have in my tank are some tetras and a smorgasbord of crypts... oh yeah and Java moss which never dies out and some Java fern. The blackbeard algae, spot algae and water column algae were killing me and the wife was b'ing about how gross it looks and the smell from the tank from said problem, but NOW hahaha "you have truly got a green thumb on land Imani under water" laughs in devilish tone picture of how I fine tuned my light if anyone is curious, just let me know! My tank is a 55 gallon. Thanks!

 

[Optix]

I used to run 2 over a 40B. I injected CO2 and had automated EI dosing

I could grow anything. My biggest issue was I couldn't keep up with the maintenence of a high tech high light tank....and it was OVERRUN with BBA.

I eventually tore it down, bleach bombed it... Scrubbed it... Boiled and baked my substrate and hardscape several times over. Then bought 2 aquasky lights instead and went with Java fern, Java moss, crypts, marsilea hirsuta, and anubias. Instead of my plants doubling in size every few days - glosso, HC, MC) ... I maybe get a new leaf every 2 weeks. My issue is I have an explosion of diatoms (which I am attributing to new tank syndrome).

Dosing EI at 50%. Still high CO2.
I much prefer the slow grow life... But my Java fern is putting off babies like crazy and the leaves aren't huge like I see on the internet (which is what I want.. Tall, bushy growth)

 

[jake21]

I've used the plant 3.0 for 3 or 4 years; but have been switching to different lights. To me the huge plus of hte plant 3.0 is reliability and very good water proofing. The last light i've tried was the new freshwater blade. This is a stronger light; the big advantage seems to be much more neutral spectrum. The weakness are short warranty; not nearly as good water proofing and worse ap. With regards to growing plants - i havent' had it long enough to give a full evaluation (which is why i purchased it) so that will have to wait a year or two for further comments and then i will have more to say on reliability - at least for my sample. As for algae and stuff - all these lights are adjustable - they can be too dim or have poor spectrum but since you can dim them and shorten the duration period you can always control those factors. Of course plants and aquarium stability move in order of months so one must not over-react. Btw fishes that seem to eat bba (if that is your issue) include panda gara and sae (get quite large); i'm not sure if bba is due to true imbalance so fish solution is not so harsh; but algae is due to true aquarium imbalance and should be address via that means (imho).