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Stem plants are growing towards white wall...

729 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  AdrienDeLaChicago
My lighting is an ADA Solar I over a 60-p that's approx. A foot about the water. It's level, and I took a lot of time measuring and re measuring and leveling and it's directly over the center of the tank shining straight down. It's not tilted toward the wall.

Here is the problem... My plants that are planted at the very back next to the glass are growing facing the back of the tank because the white wall is reflecting light. I never thought this would happen, but apparently the reflected light is more intense than the 150 watt hqi that is centered above the tank. the light used to be two feet above the tank and I lowered the light as plant mass increased (kept it high after I first planted to avoid algae) and they were growing towards the white wall when the light was higher, too.

Has anyone else had this problem? It only affects the very back plants and not the mid ground or foreground plants. Specifically, the plants affected are Pogostemon erectus, Rotala rotundofolia, Rotala "colorata" which isn't so colorful, and Rotala macandra. They are all healthy, they are just growing toward the wall.

Co2 injected, ei, blah blah blah everything is good except this.
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But a background on the glass.
Was going to suggest the same thing. Use a background on the tank or paint the white wall a different color. It is more work to paint a wall.

Either that or if possible move the tank further away from the wall or move the lighting forward a bit so it does not reflect off the wall so much.

Not sure if this is an option but perhaps you can build some sort of reflecto to attach to the back of the tank so that the light does not shine on the tank. It is sort of like creating a "spotlight" effect by cutting the light off of the wall. This involves you being creative and using a type of material that is safe to use on a light fixture, of course.
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