Can somebody please explain this?

[cutter]

Hi all, I have a planted 50G, high light (4x40W T5 with Diy CO2), tank established for a little more than a year. The tank is populated by discus, cardinal tetras, clown loaches and a betta. So here is the thing. For the past year, i had been struggling with 2 to 3 weekly 35-40% water changes, i've provided CO2 and high light for my plants and the ENTIRE range of Seachem's line for macro and micronutrients. What i got in return was satisfactory plant growth and a constant (but controlable) battle with algae. 10 days ago i left for vacation leaving just the tank's filters running, deciding not to trust anyone with feeding the fish and switching the tank's lights on and off. I returned home to find a tank with no sign of algae altogether, crystal clear water and the plants never looking healthier! I'm telling you i didn't want to do a water change because everything looked like it had just been cleaned by a professional.
So, here is my question. Are all those liquids supplements that are supposed to help plant growth any good, because i have never seen my tank cleaner and my plants healthier than after 10 days of darkness and no liquid supplements at all. Is all this light and CO2 really needed? Am i missing something here?

 

[THUNDER]

I cant help you, but it seem to me that you give all the life in the tank a complete rest for 10 days from the massive water changes, massive lightings, and liquid supplements. You know what they say, people get tired of the same thing over and over. LOL! It can be said for the plants and fishes.

Thunder

 

[Avalon]

It depends on what you are trying to achieve, and the plants you want to grow. Lighting plays the biggest factor. Unless you are willing to put in hours of work per week, then I would not go with a high light route. You would be suprised at what you can grow with lower lighting. Lowering your light will reduce the plant's demand for CO2. This is where the majority of people go wrong with planted tanks: they do not understand the complexity that higher light and CO2 bring to the planted aquarium.

You stike me as a person who really wants to enjoy the overall prescence of the aquarium as opposed to nit picking over plants, hence your choice of discus. Your fish load is probably quite large, so by reducing the light, you could probably eliminate CO2, and macro fertilization--thus reducing many variables that may be causing your algae woes. I would still recommend trace fertilization, maybe twice per week. You could even use Flourish Excel if you would like to give your plants a little boost in the CO2 department without having things get out of whack. I'm currently giving it a go and I'm finding it to be a great supplement.

What plants are your growing? That will help me to help you.

 

[cutter]

Hi Avalon, you're probably right; a 50G tank is not the ideal environment to host a group of discus, hence 2 filters and the large water changes 3 times a week. My plants are echinodorus tenelus for a carpet plant plus anubias and some vals for the background. Unfortunately the higher temps that the discus demand don't leave me many choices for plants...
I have to agree with you that providing high lights and CO2 sometimes complexes things much more than initially planned; this has happened to me to an extent (algae problems; not able to regulate CO2 flow with DIY CO2 etc.) but i got to grow my carpet plant which i couldn't do with the crappy factory 2X20W flouroscent bulbs that came with the tank originally! I'm using Excel and Iron daily, together with Flourish Trace (twice a week), Phosphorus and Potassium and Flourish (twice a week as well).

 

[Igor The Cat]

unless your keeping discus at abnormally high temps, most reletivly hardy tropical plants will survive just fine, but im with avalon on this one (for some reason i seem to always be with avalon? lol) in that it might be a good idea to lower your light, stop injecting CO2 and use flourish excel as a replacement.

cheers

-Java

 

[Lonewolfblue]

You also have to look at DIY CO2. What does a 55G tank really need? Well, think of it this way, a 10G tank can do ok on 1 2L bottle, but 2 is much better. So if you have a tank that's 5x bigger, you need that much more CO2 to really be doing any good. Also, a low fluctuating CO2 level is a trigger for BBA as well. So if you are wanting high light and lush growth, then pressurized is the only way you are going to get it. And as for reactors, you need a really good one to do any good with a DIY on a 55G, one where it doesn't let any CO2 escape to the surface as bubbles.

 

[Igor The Cat]

So if you are wanting high light and lush growth, then pressurized is the only way you are going to get it.

not true, i currently have have an extremely high light 29gal (184W) with 2 bottles of DIY and growth is excellent, ive found that a well maintained DIY can be almost as good as pressurized, but pressurized sure is a lot easier.

cheers

-Java

 

[Lonewolfblue]

not true, i currently have have an extremely high light 29gal (184W) with 2 bottles of DIY and growth is excellent, ive found that a well maintained DIY can be almost as good as pressurized, but pressurized sure is a lot easier.

cheers

-Java

hmmmm, 29G, 55G..... Big difference there........
I'm running pressurized on a 75G with 520W. Just a bit more there, lol.

 

[Igor The Cat]

btu the point is that everything can be scaled, just like lighting, even going by WPG our lighting is very nearly the same but you have a wider and deeper tank so there for i may have a slightly brighter aquarium if Lux were measured at the bottom, but i have seen a multitude of beautiful 45-55gal aquariums that where using many bottles of DIY, its just more labor intensive than presurrized.

cheers

-Java