[APD] The little tank that could!

[Gwmangen at cs_com]

Thank you Hieber/Broadbridge/Barr for responding to my post.  The plants 
referred to in the "Bad air and light?" post aren't doing as well as they used to 
do.  It's good to start eliminating possible causes to get to the bottom of 
the problem.  I've traded out the 25 watt bulb for a 40 watt at 10 hours a day.  
I was using an incandescent to flourescent conversion factor of 4.62 instead 
of the 7 recommended by Hieber.  The intensified lighting should allow Barr's 
recommendations to work.  I'm confident they will work.  I've seen pictures of 
some of his tanks.  They are very impressive.

The formula I'm using for light is one that I found in the archives:

1.  Multiply surface area by distance from light source to substrate in 
inches.

2.  Multiply product by 0.08 for low light, 0.12 for moderate light, 0.18 for 
moderate to high or 0.27 for high light.

3.  Then you divide by the number of hours the tank is to be illuminated.  
This gives you the total amount of watts you will need for that time to grow 
your plants.  If you don't have right wattage you can increase or decrease the 
time.

You're supposed to adjust intensity of the light by varying the distance of 
the light from the substrate or by changing the wattage or both.

At this point I have 20 pounds of CO2 which is more CO2 than the 2 gallons of 
water in the tank.  So, I'm pretty committed to the CO2 route.  I'm going to 
push light, CO2, N, P, K and trace elements as much as practicle.  If the tank 
gets out of hand I'll get a bigger tank.  Success in such a small tank would 
be a validation of the methods.  Having to change 1/2 gallon of water every 
three days is fun.  It takes five minutes including the dosing regimen.  It's 
the weekly water tests that are no fun.  Someday I hope to be good enough at 
this to not have to do so much testing.  I even test the test kits with other 
test kits!  I use standard solutions and ask for second opinions on the readings. 
 The plants themselves are the ultimate test though.

Sincerely, George Mangen
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