# Chihiros WRGB II 120 HELP!



## Savi_g (1 Jul 2021)

Hi there guys

I fear by letting you all get a look at my tank, there’s going to be a lot of opinions that may revolve around me changing things I’m already pretty happy with for instance, amount of plants, amount of fish, equipment and so on but I’m trying a new approach of spend less, do less, enjoy more.  So the fish numbers will die down over time, as will the amount of plants and I won’t be changing any equipment for a while now having spent enough.   My issue has always been trying to get those lovely pearly bubbles!!! And I feel like I’m not making the most of this awesome light. So I’d really appreciate some advice   The app allows me to set the Kelvin from 13000k to 3300k but not knowing what’s best I’ve just kept it at 8700k.  This may be my biggest down fall but  I’ve no idea at this time.  What do you think please guys??  
Here’s my stats

chihiros 120 WRGB II running at full for 10 hours with a ramp up/down of 1 hour from 0%.  
Filter is the fx6 fluval…may be overkill but I don’t know. 

Pressurised co2 at 4bps. (and this bit worries me but my readings always come back as 30ppm and I never loose any fish and mid day have a nice emerald green 4dkh) 
the tank is 335ltr I think? Give or take a few

 vallisneria-gigantea at the top of the tank a couple inches away from the light and 26 from light to substrate. The tank is as wide as the light so 120. The floor is covered is cryps as well as a lot of over stuff and there’s some mid level anubius on the wood. You can see what’s in there from the picture.
I’m dosing with the Ei method and apart from a few plants I’m really impressed with their colour. My inexperience has no doubt led to me badly parenting plants so I get that not all plants are going to flourish fully. 
My no2/no3 levels are a little higher this week but I haven’t done my water change yet and they aren’t usually that high.  I’ve got a lot of fish..I can’t do anything about it now..it is what it is. 
I do a weekly change of 50% though annoyingly I’ve got friends that add no ferts and only top up the water weekly and see massive increases in babies but…I’ll trust the Ei method of changing 50% weekly.  Take a look at my tank. PLEASE please do let me know what you think of ANY and all aspects of it just..go easy on me because I do love it.  Below is also a picture of my lighting schedule and simple dip test readings.  
I don’t have the knowledge you guys have so I don’t get the pleasure of helping others on here, only those at work who are complete beginners but I really appreciate all the help you guys give out. So thank you


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## Wookii (1 Jul 2021)

I’m really not seeing any issues here - you have good clean, healthy plant growth, free of algae.

You look a bit over stocked on the fish front for sure, but you already know that, and it’s down to you to decide whether to take some out and rehome them for the benefit of those that remain, or not.

Frankly the most important thing is:



Savi_g said:


> I do love it



As far as the light goes, the colour temperature you set on the WRGB II will have no bearing on the plants or fish as long as you don’t increase the overall intensity, which you don’t need to do as you seem to have found the right balance for your tank already.

Any adjustments you make, are only for personal preference in the colour rendition. I have a WRGB II on my low tech, which is covered with surface plants, which gives it a greener cast than would otherwise be the case with them, so I up the red and blue in proportion to the green, to compensate and get a little better colour rendition underneath the floater.

As you are running at 100%, that might not be an option, but you could try reducing the green a little to experiment.


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## Wolf6 (2 Jul 2021)

I think many video's of pearling plants have the filter turned off briefly so the oxygen can accumulate faster on the leaves. If its just pearling you want to see you could try that. Your tank looks lush and healthy, I wouldn't change much.


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## Savi_g (2 Jul 2021)

That’s some good advice and I think I’ll give it a go and see what happens.  Yes, obviously it over crowded in there but early eagerness coupled with inexperience and taking in unwanted fish means I’m not going to be getting rid of anything.  No one disgusts in there, everyone has their own spaces to hid away.  Whenever I take a picture everyone comes out to say hello (they don’t care about me, it’s just the food they want but 🤫) so it often looks worse than it is in most pictures.  It’s still hard to find people with opinions on these lights though even after such great reviews and stats, trying to get info on how other people run them on tanks similar to mine has proved REALLY difficult.   I guess I could go the route of a par reader but I think they’re pretty costly?   Anyway, thank you again guys.


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## Gorillastomp (6 Jul 2021)

Wolf6 said:


> I think many video's of pearling plants have the filter turned off briefly so the oxygen can accumulate faster on the leaves. If its just pearling you want to see you could try that.


Yep that and they probably just did a water change. +1 for turning off the filter to see if the plant pearls since with an FX5 you have a lot of flow, it might just wash out the pearling. Anyways your plants look healthy (there's a bit of necrose on some leaves could be due to shading by the vallisneria) so i would not bother about this, by chasing this you may just unbalance your tank but you do you .

If you can't achieve pearling, you will need to increase the light by adding another one so the plant can synthetize more. Keep in mind if you do this you will need to ramp CO2 and ferts accordingly.


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## Wookii (6 Jul 2021)

I've noticed that pearling often relates to the amount of CO2 being injected, the level of nutrients being dosed, and the amount of light a plant receives relative to it requirements (i.e. a crypt will pearl on its leaves in relatively lower light than a fast growing stem for example) - when any of these area drop off too much, plants stop pearling. 

When my CO2 injection rate and distribution is good plants will pearl regardless of whether the filter is on or not, including those directly in the filter outflow, presumably because the water is saturated with DO - granted when you switch the filter off, the streams of bubble rising to the surface become a lot more visible.

Whilst pearling in itself shouldn't particularly be an objective, as it's not a direct indicator of plant health, if you have plants that do pearl it can be a useful indicator if they suddenly stop pearling one day. It happened twice to me this year, once when my CO2 ran low, and again why my micro's bottle on the auto-doser ran out - the first indication to me, in both cases, was the rotalas were no longer covered in bubbles in the middle of the photoperiod.


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