# Two questions from a noob!



## ZeeDeveel (20 Jun 2015)

Hi all,

I'm setting up a cat litter tank with some basic planting for goldies: amazon swords, dwarf hairgrass, moss balls. Would some cheap LED lighting be sufficient such as: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Interpet-Wa...1434837434&sr=8-1&keywords=led+aquarium+light and how would duckweed affect this? (100L - 3ft)

Second, is Osmocote a decent cheap fert or is the ammonia a big problem?

Thanks


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## zozo (21 Jun 2015)

Join the party.. 
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/led-curious.37514/#post-405110


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## ZeeDeveel (21 Jun 2015)

Hi Zozo, thanks for your reply. I had actually read that thread already. The suggestions seemed to be for light strips of approx £40+. Can cheaper ones be effective?


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## zozo (21 Jun 2015)

I can only speak for my own experience and still testing my diy setup for the longer term.. Till now i'm good to go with wath i got in the aquarium all grows steady and healthy. All that LED stuff is still young and rapidly developing.. For me i find these ready made systems over the top expensive and don't believe the marketing stories they come up with to make you buy it. They all the seems to use LEDs with dubious speccs i can't seem to find in the LED industry.

I started with 3 strips 600 lumen each i had to buy as a set of 2 for $ 25 p/set thats $12.50 p/strip wanted to try 3 types so had to buy 3 sets. I'm testing it on 2 aqauriums. A low tech from my friends daughter. That tank is doing realy great on that set, better then the TL tube which was above it.

And above a high tech and there i extended it with 2 more strips of 1080 lum each. For what i see and how it all grows i believe it's enough for the plant choices i made.

It's all in tank hight and plant choice.

For high tanks you definitely need High power leds.. There are diy PCB strips to find, fit to solder highpower leds on.

Yet there are not very much people with long term expperiences wwith led lights. The longest maybe a year... And the LEDs from a year back are lesser than the LEDs available now.

It's all still magic..


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## ian_m (22 Jun 2015)

zozo said:


> Yet there are not very much people with long term expperiences wwith led lights


There certainly are, especially using the LED strips. You will soon find out why many people are no longer using them as doing LED's properly with long term reliability costs serious money.

Read here (one of the many) of what happens to LED strips. Fine for under unit kitchen lighting but not bright enough and protected enough for use in a fish tank.
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/led-strip-experiments.32010/#post-338984

See here one of the main reasons LED strips are so unreliable and poor light output....fakes.
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/what-led.35187/#post-377556


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## zozo (22 Jun 2015)

I mean more to say that with the steady development like this product undergoes any long term experience will probably be outdated the time you come to your conclusion. It's like a long term experiense with an 1999 Intel prescot hypertreading processor in your desktop..  it took less 3 years to make a slow oldtimer of it and it's succesor went oldtimer in half the time. 

I'm just thinking differently, i do not think in long term experience with fast developng products. And also do not always believe i never changing winning teams. What you see it what you get... The powersupply i bought does it's job for years to come, the controller will do the same, those are long term multi imployable investments Just doing a simple side job  The € 45 investment in the 5 strips i bought which obviously do a great job at the moment, i don't give a flying figure about it if they only last a year. Then i got great light for a year.  and then i buy me new even better fake ones for about the same price if you like to call it that way. And then still i'm cheaper of then buying a € 175 official aquarium build led tube where i pay 60% name and 40% product. Where the long term test experience is a lauch and fake in may opinion, because after a year they well be as outdated as all others are. Or just an even more expensive old fashion T5 or wath so ever in the never change a winning team modus, which i have to exchange once a year. Yes grandpa back in the day everything was better!?.


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## zozo (22 Jun 2015)

A nice example it was less then a year ago last summer, i red an article at The Green Machine about "Why don't we sell LED lights" according to the testing mister James Findley did he stated LEDs are not suitable to grow aquatic plants. And he yet didn't find a supplier who could bring him LEDs that could do.

It took him less then 5 months to retract the article and recall his statement and change his oppinion.. Look in his webshop what he's selling now..  The champ..

Write him an email and ask his opinion..


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## zozo (22 Jun 2015)

ian_m said:


> There certainly are, especially using the LED strips. You will soon find out why many people are no longer using them as doing LED's properly with long term reliability costs serious money.



As we speak i'll found out there is a new LED developed  Launched in 2015.

Short specs:
SMD 8520 dual chip 12 volt - 0,25watt/chip
36 leds * 0,5m rigid aloy PCB strip - 9 watt 
(Now this rigid strip is a hard aloy 2mm thik -12 mm wide - 500 mm long strip with 36 leds which fits in a aloy shell casing available in many differend models.

40/45 lum p/chip = max 1650 lumen p/strip - Min 1440 lumen p/strip

Unfortunately the factory providing these specs with warenty of 2 years only will provide them in a batch of minimum 20 pieces.

Wont be long and they will be for sale around p/piece found them in france already but the chipping cost are not lucrative for me.

So within less then 6 months i'm already outdated by 650 lumens.  and they keep comming...


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## ian_m (22 Jun 2015)

zozo said:


> Min 1440 lumen p/strip


Compared to over 2000lumen for a T5HO tube @500mm.


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## zozo (22 Jun 2015)

ian_m said:


> Compared to over 2000lumen for a T5HO tube @500mm.


Only if you need a 2000..  want be long and they are there too..

Edit:
Samsung is already there they have the model lhs-85-002 12 watt - 2050 lumen p/strip..


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## ZeeDeveel (23 Jun 2015)

Well this got slightly out of hand lol. I have been reading and trying to follow though.

Any word on the Osmocote situation?


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## ian_m (23 Jun 2015)

Osmocote can be used, carefully and yes it does contain ammonia (ammonium citrate ?) so can be toxic to fish.

People have used it for ages, in a thin layer at the bottom of their substrate, yes it does leach ammonia but at such low levels usually not an issue. Where it does become an issue is if you do some major substrate/plant rearrangements and expose the Osmocote directly into the water.

Personally I didn't bother as I felt EI would be and I know is perfectly sufficient to grow plants successfully.


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## ZeeDeveel (23 Jun 2015)

Do the EI supplies cost big bucks? I'm trying to be a cheapskate!


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## ian_m (23 Jun 2015)

ZeeDeveel said:


> Do the EI supplies cost big bucks?


No, just the opposite. EI is the cheapest method of fertilising aquatic plants and is what all the science research in growing plants in high tech is based upon.

http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/fertilisers/dry-chemicals/starter-kits/ei-starter-kit.html

You are paying for just the nutrients no expensive name, no expensive bottle and no expensive water.


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## ZeeDeveel (23 Jun 2015)

Brilliant, I'll look into it then. Will that 20 quid starter set last quite a while?

Here's an interesting question: can my bedroom floor likely support a 300 litre tank?


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## ian_m (23 Jun 2015)

With the starter kit you will get about 15 bottles worth before needing to buy more powders. So for your 300l tank, dosing 60ml 3 times a week (total 180ml) gives you 500ml x 15 bottles /180 -> 40 weeks worth.

However if your tank is large you might be better to mix in 1000ml bottles or just put the dry ferts straight into your tank.

Use something like this to work out your dry doses eg MgSO4 is 3tsp every other day.
http://yanc.rotalabutterfly.com/



ZeeDeveel said:


> can my bedroom floor likely support a 300 litre tank


No idea. You will need to consult a structural engineer as all houses are different. 300litre is 300Kg, + substrate + tank could be heading towards 400Kg total.


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## Dantrasy (23 Jun 2015)

EI works. Lots of people swear by it. 

Personally, I do it a bit different. If you're new and EI is all new to you, please have a read of this

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/algae/69737-method-controlled-imbalances-summary.html


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## ZeeDeveel (23 Jun 2015)

Online consensus seems to be that if the tank is placed across the joists, near a load bearing wall, anything up to 125 gallons shouldn't be an issue.

I am researching EI, thanks for the responses!


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## ian_m (23 Jun 2015)

ZeeDeveel said:


> I am researching EI, thanks for the responses


The advantage of EI, compared to all the other dosing schemes is KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.

There are numerous ways to feed the plants, PMDD, lean dose, fish food, commercial mixtures etc which can be made to produce wonderful results. A lot involve quite a lot of faffing around, measuring things, testing things, mixing carefully measured amounts etc etc. Biggest issue is the you cannot really measure things in your tank or even tap water, as the hobby test kits used are not very good or reliable thus you are basing your fertilising regime on a really dodgy start, leading almost immediately to plant/algae issues.

However with EI...
- Mix solutions, measuring using spoons is perfectly adequate as designed to be in excess.
- Add to tank.
- Once a week change 50% water to remove plant waste, fish waste and excess unused fertiliser.

Done. No accurate measuring, no changing dose depending on test results all nice and KISS.


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## ZeeDeveel (24 Jun 2015)

I know this is controversial but since I'm using... *cough* goldfish in my planted tank, I don't think I'm going to need such a dedicated supplement plan. So I've just bought these to go under the substrate.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Qual...t=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item4d26bba71f

I'm using *cough* goldfish resistant plants and I'm gonna have plenty of duckweed and amphipods for them to munch, so hopefully they'll not deforest my tank too much. Will I likely need to supplement iron or phosphate or anything?

Getting my 300 litre tank up the stairs almost killed me.


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## ian_m (24 Jun 2015)

ZeeDeveel said:


> Will I likely need to supplement iron or phosphate or anything?


With low light levels and small numbers of low poo rate fish you can get away with no extra carbon or fertiliser source for the plants, as rotting fish poo will fertilise the plants, but is quite a slow rate in doing so.

In your case you will probably need to add small amounts for carbon source and fertiliser source in order to allow the plant growth to keep up with the goldfish destruction and eating rate. However in doses not as high as hi-tech dosing levels.

So if you are low tech (ie no CO2) and low light, dose a liquid carbon at say 1/4 rate in your 100l tank (2ml twice a week ?) and EI dosing solutions 5ml twice a week, alternate macro days to micro. Doesn't need to be exact amounts and times as all low tech and ticking slowly along. My mate has a low tech tank, doses liquid carbon once every couple of days and EI solution every couple of days and plants are growing nicely and algae free.

Suitable liquid carbon here...
http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/neutro-co2-medium-p-6377.html


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## ZeeDeveel (24 Jun 2015)

A trove of knowledge here, thanks so much Ian, this is really useful.

Any word on how red/blue LEDs look in an aquarium? Will the purple drown out the colour of everything else?


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## ian_m (24 Jun 2015)

ZeeDeveel said:


> Any word on how red/blue LEDs look in an aquarium? Will the purple drown out the colour of everything else?


I think you will find without the green to reflect off green plants your planted tank will look "washed out". Look in the lighting section of this forum for how plants look under differing T5 tubes.

Plants don't really care about spectrum, they use what light there is (broadly) but your human eyes do. Choose lighting to make your green plants stand out to your eyes.


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## ZeeDeveel (26 Jun 2015)

I'm gonna go with 6500k or so I think. Purple will make everything look drab, you're right.

Would heavily insulating an unheated tank increase it's temperature by any significant amount? Would it help the tank maintain heat from the day overnight better?

I'm wanting to keep the tank from getting uber cold in winter. If I were to get a heater, what sort of running costs could I expect for keeping a heavily insulated, 300 litre tank at about 14 degrees during the winter? And what size heater should I get? (It'd be insulated with thermawrap on 5/6 sides.)


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## parotet (26 Jun 2015)

I bought once a pink tube, probably something similar to the grow tubes. If you just look inside the tank it is fine, the layout looks more red. The problem is when you notice that your living room looks like if an UFO had landed. Not nice, those tubes spread a weird pink glow.
I use T5HOs and now I buy the cheapest tube I can find in my hardware store between 4,500 and 9,000 Kelvin. Plants look nice and it looks more or less natural. I usually buy them for 4 to 6 euros (Osram, Phillips, Sylvania... 24w), good quality and very cheap compared to the aquarium-brand ones.

Jordi


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