RE: Lighting question: Follow up and Plant Dormancy

["Anderson, Jerry" <Jerry_Anderson at wonderware.com>]

Follow-up:

Well, since renewing my water changes, adding supplements, increasing my
feeding frequency, adding 5 neon tetras, 2 blue rams and three new plants my
tank has done a complete 180. My problems seems to have simply been not
enough food for the plants.

Blue-Green slime algae is almost gone, it began disappearing within 2 days
of making the changes. 

Plants are taking off like crazy. I have stuff popping out of the substrate
that I haven't seen in almost a year. No joke. I even have duckweed growing
which I put into the tank over 2 years ago and have not seen in over a year
and a half. That was completely unexpected!!! 

And I am getting my oxygen bubbles back.

Thanks to Giancarlo for reminding me of how a planted tank works. :-)

Has anyone else ever seen plants reemerge after a long dormancy like I am
seeing?

Jerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Anderson, Jerry 
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 11:12 AM
To: 'Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com'
Subject: Lighting question


Hi everyone,

I have a planted 29 gal tank (30l x 12w x 18h) w/ a flourite and gravel
substrate, 2 bio-wheels (no carbon), injected C02 and a couple of mini-pumps
for circulation. Heater is set to 78. Fish seem fine, plants not so fine.
I've been lax in my water changes, but I am making amends. I don't know the
details as far as Nitrites, Nitrates, C02, hardness, etc. I only have 5 very
small fish in the tank. So, I don't think this is an issue. I'll get the
readings over the weekend.

My question is this: 

I am using 4 20watt bulbs for lighting. 2 Power-Glo and 2 Aqua-Glo. But, I
am thinking that these may not provide the right light or enough light to
the bottom of the tank. This setup worked fine in a 20 gal long tank. Plenty
of growth and lots of oxygen bubbles. Barely any growth and no bubbles.

I am wiling to either go with different bulbs - cost is not really an issue.
Or upgrading to a PC system.

Any thoughts?
Jerry


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