Hi All,
I wanted to start a discussion on peoples experiences on the effects of lighting intensity vs the lighting duration in the aquarium.
I've recently moved from T8 to LED (4 x Grobeam 600 over 180l 3ft tank) and I totally underestimated the power of them causing me to have massive plant melt but strangely very little algae apart from some light diatoms on my rocks. I was slightly bemused as I had a yellow tinted drop checker and was dosing EI so expected the plants to have everything then needed.
I've now gotten the tank to a point where plants have stopped melting but I'm seeing only very slow growth which makes me assume I've hit some sort of balance but to get there I've had to dim my LEDs to 10%! To get things growing better I'm going to have to increase the photo period or the lighting intensity.
I see a lot of tanks on here, particularly from the long standing pro's of the hobby where they appear to dive straight in with a lot higher level of light than I do yet don't seem to have any problems. I'd be surprised if someone like George Farmer would start running lighting so low as to what I am doing but that's what this thread is about. to understand peoples thoughts when addressing intensity and duration of light.
So enlighten (pun intended) us all with your thoughts about what to start an aquarium off with when setting up your lighting!
Personally, In my own experience I started off with about 30% intensity and a short photo period of 4 hours for bedding in but it seems that was very wrong even with good CO2 and flow.
Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
I wanted to start a discussion on peoples experiences on the effects of lighting intensity vs the lighting duration in the aquarium.
I've recently moved from T8 to LED (4 x Grobeam 600 over 180l 3ft tank) and I totally underestimated the power of them causing me to have massive plant melt but strangely very little algae apart from some light diatoms on my rocks. I was slightly bemused as I had a yellow tinted drop checker and was dosing EI so expected the plants to have everything then needed.
I've now gotten the tank to a point where plants have stopped melting but I'm seeing only very slow growth which makes me assume I've hit some sort of balance but to get there I've had to dim my LEDs to 10%! To get things growing better I'm going to have to increase the photo period or the lighting intensity.
I see a lot of tanks on here, particularly from the long standing pro's of the hobby where they appear to dive straight in with a lot higher level of light than I do yet don't seem to have any problems. I'd be surprised if someone like George Farmer would start running lighting so low as to what I am doing but that's what this thread is about. to understand peoples thoughts when addressing intensity and duration of light.
So enlighten (pun intended) us all with your thoughts about what to start an aquarium off with when setting up your lighting!
Personally, In my own experience I started off with about 30% intensity and a short photo period of 4 hours for bedding in but it seems that was very wrong even with good CO2 and flow.
Look forward to hearing your thoughts.