[brandy3392]

I'm a total newbie to planted tanks and am trying to figure out what lighting level I have. Tank is a 29 gallon with Eco Complete substrate. My light is the 30 inch Beamswork HE 6500K 1W Series LED. It is about 17 inches off the substrate, and there is a glass canopy on the tank. Any idea what lighting level this would be? I'm guessing medium.

My plants are various swords, lilies, aponogeton, wisteria, hygrophila, vals, pennywort, and a little java fern. I also have some salvinia minima floating (covers maybe 20% of the tank). The salvinia minima can go if it needs to. Tank is moderately planted and moderately stocked. It has been running for a month. Water changes are 40% weekly.

I'm also wondering what I should be doing for lighting and fertilization schedule. I have been dosing with Excel daily at standard dosage. Using Seachem ferts, but just ordered dry ferts. I would like to try EI dosing. Thinking maybe 1/3 of standard dose?

Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Willcooper]

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1...ar.html#/forumsite/20495/topics/875457?page=1

Low light directly under the light and very low the further away, front to back, you get from the light.

How long is the light on now? Any algae issues? I would recommend a constant lighting period unless you want to split the photo period for viewing purposes. I imagine, depending on how densely planted the tank is, you could get away with 8-10 hr lighting period. Ei is recommended for high plant mass co2 injected tanks. At 1/3 dose you are getting into the ppspro range. I would throw root tabs in now, because the nutrients that came with ecocomplete are likely gone now, and do a 1/2 dose ppspro routine (full dose every other day alternating micros/macros). You won't need to much fertilizer in the water column with that light level if you have root tabs. If you ordered dry ferts for ei you should have all you need for ppspro with the possible exception of the solution containers.

Got a pic of the tank?

 

[Kubla]

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1...ar.html#/forumsite/20495/topics/875457?page=1

Low light directly under the light and very low the further away, front to back, you get from the light.

How long is the light on now? Any algae issues? I would recommend a constant lighting period unless you want to split the photo period for viewing purposes. I imagine, depending on how densely planted the tank is, you could get away with 8-10 hr lighting period. Ei is recommended for high plant mass co2 injected tanks. At 1/3 dose you are getting into the ppspro range. I would throw root tabs in now, because the nutrients that came with ecocomplete are likely gone now, and do a 1/2 dose ppspro routine (full dose every other day alternating micros/macros). You won't need to much fertilizer in the water column with that light level if you have root tabs. If you ordered dry ferts for ei you should have all you need for ppspro with the possible exception of the solution containers.

Got a pic of the tank?

Unless I'm missing something you've linked him to data for the same brand but a completely different light. The link is for a fixture with 1/2 watt leds and his has 1 watt leds.

 

[brandy3392]

Unless I'm missing something you've linked him to data for the same brand but a completely different light. The link is for a fixture with 1/2 watt leds and his has 1 watt leds.

Yes, my light is the version with 1 watt leds. In the photo, my floating plants are blocking a good portion of the right side of the tank. I try to move them around a bit so they aren't always in the same place.

I normally have the lights on for around 8 hours. The only algae I'm seeing is filamentous diatoms and GSA on the glass. I did add some pieces of Jobe's fertilizer spikes around the swords when I set things up. About 2.5 spikes total. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000279304/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am seeing quite a bit of melting in my plants, but some new growth too. I think a lot of my plants were grown emersed, so I'm not sure if that is the reason for some of the die-off. I think one of my swords has died completely, but it looked a little rough when I got it. My wisteria has transitioned to fern-like leaves, which I've heard indicates good lighting levels. The 2 aponogeton and 2 lily bulbs were sprouted and have grown well in this tank. My water onion bulb grew a couple leaves, then rotted and died.

 

[Willcooper]

Oh snap! My bad on that. So somewhere around 40ish par then I would imagine (low-low/med light). Lighting schedule should remain the same as I recommended then. Tom Bar did a write up on low tech fert dosing on the barrreport.com . I just read it but don't have the link. He had recommendations for much less nutrients than ei provides. Do a quick search for to better understand your nutrient dosing.

 

[brandy3392]

Thanks for the help! I'm very experienced with fish only tanks, but have no idea what I'm doing with planted tanks. It's hard not to become discouraged when I'm killing more than what I am growing. Just want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

 

[Kubla]

Here is a link to some Beamswork par data. Not sure if it's the same light as yours or not.
http://http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lighting/415522-par-readings-beamswork-greenelement-other-cheap-chinese-arrays.html