Planted 20 gallon long

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BellycrawlerJaws

BellycrawlerJaws

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Sep 25, 2010
1,902
3
38
Long Island, New York
20 long planted tank - first try at planted
Just wanted to get some opinions of what people thought of my 20 gallon long planted tank. Suggestions? Thoughts? I'm open to anything you think would help!

Lighting - Aquaticlife T5 HO 30" fixture (48 watts)
Ferts - 1 dose of Nutrafin Plant Gro every 2 weeks
Stock - 1 HRP, 9 Pristella tetras

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aclockworkorange said:
Up the fertz, up the CO2. ;)
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Just set it up one week ago and am already seeing growth so I'm going to buy a test kit to see how quickly the ferts are being used up.

But I don't have a CO2 system, mainly because I've read it can be harmful / detrimental for the fish. And my HRP is the main focal point for the tank for me :)
 
You could try a carbon supplement like Seachem Excel. You're using a lot of light on a 12" tall tank, could very easily turn into an algae farm if things get out of balance.
 
Should I perhaps lower the ferts then? Or lower the amount of time the lights are on? Right now they're on for 2 sets of 4.5 hours, with 4 hours of darkness between (8:30-12 on, 12-4 off, 4-8:30 on).
 
Just let me know what you guys think I should do - I just bought Seachem Excel (coming in the mail).

Found some green hair algae on the glass today so I lowered my light time to a total of 8 hours instead of the 10 hours I actually had it set to, and trimmed a few plants that had dying leaves or leaves that had algae on them, and did a water change lol
 
BellycrawlerJaws said:
Should I perhaps lower the ferts then? Or lower the amount of time the lights are on? Right now they're on for 2 sets of 4.5 hours, with 4 hours of darkness between (8:30-12 on, 12-4 off, 4-8:30 on).
Click to expand...

Your plants need fertz and CO2 to grow. If you don't have enough of that naturally produced by your fish to match the amount of light you're putting in to the tank, you will get algae.
 
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