ADA tanks have lovely carpets of HC and whilst the tank owners believe from the technical specs that their beloved ADA lighting units are highlight this has been proved wrong by tests done by TB at AFA where he tested a load of the ADA competition setups and found the ADA lighting rigs to be much much lower PAR than you would expect by looking at the wattage stated etc.
Whether this is a concious decision by ADA to reduce lighting to the levels Amano uses himself by supplying high specced units to keep the light obsessed happy whilst reducing their output via lower ballasts or less efficient reflectors I do not know but Amano DOES NOT use the amount of light that is suggested on the very popular Fitch Family article that is always banded about whenever someone suggest there is no need for highlight. this article is pushed at me at least once a week by the many who refuse to believe that Amano does not use highlight!!!!
Why do I bring this up? HC and Glosso as stated by TB are essentially low light plants. They do however need good CO2 Notice I haven't put high CO2!!! Why? Because like I said earlier. TB tests show in the region of 10ppm at the substrate. We aim for 30ppm or more to get 10ppm at the lower ppm areas. Therefore we can assume that the magic number of ppm is 10ppm or less for high CO2. The 30ppm means that adequate CO2 is throughout the tank (unlimited.)
I don't agree with Paulo r.e. huge filtration needed although it is different for every tank and setup so for some it may be needed and some may not. My 125Ltr has a single external 700lph (300ish after reduction) and as far as I am concerned it does the job perfectly. I use the 1500lph Koralia for flow boosting.
The next thing is that lph and lighting are much the same as the CO2.
Lighting - 3WPG does not mean that the light is better than 1WPG. The 1WPG may be setup at a better height, better positioning and better overall spread/coverage and therefore provide better light than a poorly positioned 3WPG. This is one reason that I don't like thin luminaires that have multiple tubes next to each other. Even if they do have individual reflectors you can't space them out as they are all fixed together. People do have success with them but I would suggest they would get the same results with less tubes if they were able to space them out better and gain better coverage too.
Flow / Lph. 1 person may have 10x turnover and 1 person may have 30x turnover. Again positioning the setups differently can mean that the 10x is better than the 30x. I am not a fan of Koralia type pumps being positioned pointing downward. If they point level then the flow will automatically push down and when it hits glass it will also rebound. Then there are those that use their Koralia pumps and have them setup with conflicting flows. This meaning that they push against each other thus cancelling a lot of the flow out!!!
CO2 - As before get the above 2 right then this is much easier to get levels right. Your DCs may be both yellow but there is absolutely no way there is parity throughout the tank. It just isn't possible. As per the TB tests there will be huge differences at various points in the tank. The 'parity' we are after is ensuring that all areas reach the 'minimum' level. This may be 10ppm or less and means some areas (next to source) will be at 100ppm+ levels. My Rasboras stay next to the diffuser playing around all day virtually. should they not be dead?
A lot of people do this the wrong way round. They say right I have got highlight so all I need to do is up the ferts and CO2. In theory yes this is good. In practice it is much much harder to maintain levels high enough for highlighting and is a struggle for many even with much lower lighting. Also the question is there is that highlight even needed. This is why the suggestions have been lower the lighting and get a balance rather than raise the ferts and CO2 to match the high lighting. Reason being that it will be much easier for you to master the levels at a lower light and from there you can move upward with more confidence, knowledge and ability if you so choose
To describe my experiences I was one of those that tried to cut corners with everything. I have always had high plant mass. I always got algae in swathes but not as bad as many. I had big problems when I started using EI. I also went the highlight route at the beginning. This is what we were all told by sites such as APC. I have always added fish from the start because like you fish are No1 and the same fish go from scape to scape. They are out of the tank for a day or less and then back in once scaped.
However once I started to get the lighting down (0.6WPG to 1.4WPG) I started to be able to get the CO2 managed. I then added the Koralia once I struggled with flow due to incredible plantmass (which I did not want to reduce.) This improved the flow and after trying several positions I managed to get the CO2 perfect again before moving onto LED lighting with awesome spread. The LEDs is only 1.12WPG but without a PAR meter I could not tell you what they would be equivalent to in T8/T5 etc. I would say that 1.12WPG is in the region of 2-3WPG on the T12 scale from comparing growth rates within the tank.
Where am I at now? Now that I now how to do things I can setup a scape from the start safe in the knowledge that the flow may need a little tinkering due to a change in positioning of plants/hardscape etc. Confidence is quite a big thing in this hobby IMO. I also have confidence enough to start a tank with slow growers from the start. No fast growers at the start to 'help fight algae' etc. I do not suffer algae breaks at the beginning.
So I can setup a tank with the fish in from the start, the final plants without any 'helper weeds' etc. and this is all down to learning. The grail is quite hard to get to but once you hit the grail it is like cycling up a very steep 2 mile hill it may take you hours
Once you hit the top it is all easy riding down the other side and you never need to reclimb the hill unless you want to
Keep at it and follow the advice. We don't hold anything back. We don't keep secrets. We share our experience gained in the main from our failures and our struggles and for most people this means that they don't have to suffer the pain that we did saving them a fortune in comparison to what we spent trying to reach the grail. Follow the advice to the letter and give things time.
The final thing is do not follow mathematics or Physics or Chemistry to the letter of the law. They have their part to play but following them rigidly does not work in this hobby. They can be used as starting points but you may find that the succesful conclusion is as far from the 'calculation' or long understood belief as it can possibly be
Good luck
AC