New light - Current USA

[Something Fishy Here]

Hey folks, i recently got a new light and wanted to share my opinion of it. Its a Current USA satellite freshwater Led plus light. I chose the manual selection model over the programmable timer model because that's more advanced than i want to mess with yet. Anyway its got several color options and you can increase or decrease the rgb manually, but the best part in my mind is the dynamic weather effects. There's sunrise, moonlight, and thunderstorm effects that are fun to play with but seem mostly like novelty. But there's also dynamic cloud civet effects where the light changes intensity and

 

[Something Fishy Here]

Continued... Changes in warmth from yellow orange to white with some turning off at different times to look like moving clouds. Its very realistic and at first i thought it was just novelty as well but I've been using mostly this dynamic cloud cover setting for a couple weeks now and have noticed my fish seem much more at home and comfortable with this setting vs a static light setting. My nn pleco used to hang on the driftwood or hide in the back except at feeding times and now is always out chilling on the sand or cruising the bottom of the tank. My Gts are more active exploring in and around the plants and driftwood rather than hovering somewhere. Even my pictus cats can be spotted cruising the sand from time to time besides at feeding. I may be seeing more than is really there but I'm thrilled and it enhances my enjoyment seeing them explore and cruise about in the sun dappled environment. Thanks for reading!

 

[LazyLathe]

I have a small Current USA light and it it a pretty neat light!
Setting it up on my phone was a hassle and took a few days to get it right.

It did make my Tiger barbs look amazing and the plants seemed to like it as well!

 

[Something Fishy Here]

That's great! I went with the simple remote control manual model, my kids love the thunderstorm and sunrise modes. But I'm still really impressed that my fishes behavior changed with the more natural light fluctuations. Hope it does well with plants for me too,I'll be trying some later this week

 

[LazyLathe]

I have to say off the bat that I cheated with my plants... This is the first time my plants have overgrown my tanks and turned them into jungles I had to prune weekly! I just finished moving 3 tanks into one large one and I threw away 2 5 gallon buckets of Jumgle Val! Gave a lot to my LFS as well!

I have always wanted a planted tank that grew lush plants and it finally happened!

First I put down a nice thick layer of Fluval Stratum and covered that with a nice layer of pool filter sand.
I also used SeaChem Flourish root Tabs as well as the liquid fertilizer.
That worked really nicely but I was still not happy...
I added a small CO2 system and then they really took off!! Any algae disappeared as well, which was a nice bonus!

I really like the cloudy setting!

 

[Something Fishy Here]

Sounds beautiful, I'm new to plants so I'm keeping it simple. My tank is window adjacent as well so gets a lot of indirect sunlight. At this point i don't care if it's the aquatic equivalent of crabgrass if i can keep it alive lol

 

[LazyLathe]

I would recommend root tablets and a liquid fertilizer as the minimum.
Your light is great, so you just need to feed them and you should have success!

It's a great journey!

 

[Something Fishy Here]

Are the root tablets used periodically or just at the start?

 

[LazyLathe]

Are the root tablets used periodically or just at the start?

Periodically as it is a fertilizer and the plants will use up all the nutrients.