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Newly planted plants. Light set up!

Louis287

New Member
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24 Jan 2022
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Rugby
Recently planted my 70L tank and just was wondering how you’d set your lighting programme up to suit I’ve read different things regarding intensity’s and how many hours!

Any suggestions for length and intensity for how many weeks till I can use the light to it’s full potential
 
I am sure someone will have an idea.

I know that it will depend on:
Which plants you are using and how many? Pic would be helpful here.
Are you using CO₂?
Are you dosing anything?
 
Thanks! Hopefully.

Crypts, bucephelandra red and green, Java fern, bacopa Carolina and Anubias.

I’m not using co2 as I don’t really have the confidence to learn that aspect. I dose tropica specialised every day and I was looking to maybe use Liquid Carbon if needed. The lights are very intense on the Superfish 60 so I bought a dimmer (s2 pro) to ease the intensity but need a proper routine for the next few weeks till the plants get established to the new set up!
image.jpg
 
I would suggest 6 or 8 hours starting out, this is pretty standard for many tanks. Once your tank is a handful of months old and everything is going ok you can try increasing the amount of hours if you want. Im running 10 hours currently but got more algae than I liked to have when I tried 12 hours.
Starting out at 6 hours will be the safest with respect to algae.

You can try your lights at 30-40%, is it Superfish brand? That part was unclear. If your plants barely grow but you dont have much algae you can adjust the intensity up a bit, while if you get a ton of algae (green kinds or grey/black kinds), dial the intensity down. Brown algae will usually always show up in a new tank no matter what you do.

Keep your ramping up and down to 30 minutes for each. Algae do better with low lighting intensities than plants do.
 
Thanks! Hopefully.

Crypts, bucephelandra red and green, Java fern, bacopa Carolina and Anubias.

I’m not using co2 as I don’t really have the confidence to learn that aspect. I dose tropica specialised every day and I was looking to maybe use Liquid Carbon if needed. The lights are very intense on the Superfish 60 so I bought a dimmer (s2 pro) to ease the intensity but need a proper routine for the next few weeks till the plants get established to the new set up!
Since you do not have CO2 you need a low light input. Otherwise the plants will not find sufficient CO2 in the water column and will start to struggle. For now, just keep the lights at quite low intensity and start with ~6h of light. The plants will need to adapt from emersed to submersed state. This will take a while. Some of the plants also might struggle due to ammonia released from the aquasoil. To avoid plant melting perform frequent water changes (start with daily WC, then 4x week, then 3x week, ...) When the plants start showing new growth you can start slowly increasing the light intensity and photoperiod. It will reach a point the plants will start showing deficiencies because lack of nutrients. It will take several months for this tank to start stabilizing. If this tank is completely new, then be prepared for bacterial blooms and algae (especially diatoms) in the coming weeks. These will disappear on their own, but you will need to keep up with maintenance during this period. I would also suggest you keep the tank at ~22 C for now.

Any suggestions for length and intensity for how many weeks till I can use the light to it’s full potential
That will not happen. You would need CO2 injection to go above a moderate light intensity...
 
Last edited:
Bucephelandra may melt in a new tank no matter how hard you try to prevent it. If it happens, don't be discouraged from keeping Buces - they are easy plants once your tank settles down.
 
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