[APD] success with high light

["Steve" <steve_wilsonii at fishpalace_org>]

I had actually posted a few weeks ago asking for suggestions on either changing from 2 150 watt metal halides to 4x55 watt pc, or just get a RODI unit for my 75 gallon tank that is very sensative due to the high light. Unfortunately I found no responses, but what I decided to to is run each of the two pendants for 5.5 hours with only an overlap of 1 hour, so that the tank is lit for a total of 10 hours. I was having re-occuring outbreaks of green water, hair algae, and cyanobacteria. I had been dosing with PMDD and I was following the directions given on TheKrib.com. I am aware that the recepie and dosing instructions is for tanks with less light then I was using.  I got some suggestions on how to beat a hair algae problem from Tom Barr (thank you so very much) and it worked like a charm. I was at a loss as to what to do next so I continued on with my PMDD regiment, but was adding more then before to follow the Tom Barr Method, but I screwed that up too.

When I posted a few weeks ago I was begining to culture some green water again and so I decided to change to my new light cycle, and test for NO3 (what a novel idea) which was not even reading on my cheap test. I downloaded Chuck Gadd's Calculator and figured out that I would have to add half a teaspoon of KNO3 to my tank to bring the NO3 reading to 6.48 to start. I thought it would be a good idea to add the other PMDD ingredients along with the KNO3 in proportion to the PMDD recepie. A half hour later my NO3 readings were right where they should be. The next day the NO3 reading was much less then 5ppm so I dosed again that night, but this time I aimed for 12ppm of NO3 while adding all of the PMDD ingredients in proportion again. The next morning my green water was completely gone and the water was crystal clear and some of the plants started to pearl a bit more. 

Since then I have continued to not let my NO3 readings drop to less then 5ppm and aside from a minor end of tank dump of my CO2 tank, my plants have dramatically changed growing habbits. It seems like I am adding too much nutrients every 2-3 days according to conventional ways of thinking, but it is working like a charm. I have gone ahead and ordered halfway decent NO3 and Fe tests so that I can get more exact readings and develope a better dosing routine.

Thank you Tom Barr for your advice on dosing and I am a bone-head for not following through earlier. Thank you Chuck Gadd for your very usefull calculator. 

Steve

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