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Low light plants not taking off in low tech setup

748 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  JJ09
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Hello,

I have a dirted 300 gallon setup. It's been up and running for about 6 years. I just did a hardscape rescape and decided to go with low light stuff like java fern, anubias, wendtii and bulbitus and dwarf sag. My goal is to have these plants accent the rocks and hardscape. I don't want to do a lot of trimming or maintenance. I also kept a couple of the large crinum natans I've had since the beginning. As a part of the rescape I ditched my compact fluorescent lights and went with (4) 48" Beamsworks 6500k leds (9 hours/day). The tank is 24" tall. I am dosing co2 (about a point drop in pH) along with a basic micro/macro mix. I drip 25 gpd of fresh water into the tank. I want to preface all of this with I appreciate any advice but I'm not the kind of guy that's going to check PAR or a bunch of other parameters. I'm not looking for the best display tank out there just a pleasant setup my family can enjoy that I don't need to put a ton of effort into. The crinum and java fern are growing and look great. The other plants are not. The anubias are the only others that are sprouting new leaves but even before they're developed they have algae on them. The dwarf sag is just filled with algae too and isn't growing. Is there any adjustment or indicator I can look at to get a bit better growth with these and cut back on the algae? Thanks in advance.

Here's a couple pics.

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Um- if you're using C02, how is that a low tech setup?
9 hours a day seems a bit much. My guess is your anubias is getting algae from too much light. Try putting a screen just over the area where the anubias is, see if that helps. Then at least you will know it's a light issue.
Thanks for the reply. I guess my terminology may be off a little. My thought was the tank isn't automated and doesn't dosing equipment. I still use analog timers still so I feel a bit old school. I'll try and block one side or just keep one bank of lights on one side off and see if the algae on the leaves is better.

Any ideas why the dwarf sag isn't growing but has all the algae on it?
No, sorry- I've never grown dwarf sag. Assumed it needs high light/ C02 which I don't have.

I still have analog timer on one of my tanks for the light- the kind where you push the pins in for every quarter hour on a dial? I actually really like that thing. It's not a pain to reset after an outage, unlike my LED w/its internal digital timer....
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