Starting to notice white spots on the LR and some brown diatoms on the sand. All the parms looked good and I did a water change/carbon/filter change. (55 gal tank, 8 gal water change) Tank temp has been steady 76/77. Tank already cycled a while back and was clear until a few days ago. My first thought was maybe too much lights? (tank is four months old now) I have a solarxtreme ho 448. 4x54.. 2 act and 2 10k. I had the ac's on from 9:30am to 8pm and the 10k from 10:00am to 12:00pm. Right now I have turned off the 10k and just run the ac from 9:30 to 8. Tank currently has some Xenia, a tomato clown and some Demsils. I also started to use some Purple Up to try to get things going. My questions.... I thought the 'rule' was to have 165 to 275 watts for a 55 gal tank? (3 to 5 watts per gal) With just two ac bulbs running, won't I be short? (2x54) I'm assuming I need the 10k's on with the ac to get the full watts for a photo period? Should I bump the temp up? I usually hit 76 as a low at night and 77/78 with the ac lights on.
white spots on LR
- Thread starter slowjazz
- Start date
bratliff;701947 wrote: The old watts per gallon "rule" is pretty much out the window these days. When I was running T5's I turned my actinics on a half hour before my main lights and then then left them on for an extra half hour after the mains were off. A poor man's dawn/dusk if you will.
The diatoms and white spots have nothing to do with your lighting, IME. They're indicative of an immature tank still cycling. A popular misconception is that once a tank has cycled it's done. No. Once the first cycle is complete, you are ready to start adding livestock. Every animal added adds to bioload. Add too much too quickly and you could go through a whole new cycle. Add slowly, and you'll generally see nitrates rise but no ammonia or nitrite.
You say your params look good, but what test kit did you use and what were those params you tested?
Get some more CUC as they'll take care of the diatoms. I prefer snails. Hermits are evil IMO.
I've got a 300g system and it stays right around 76/77 degrees. Many people run warmer. I've seen what happens when tanks get too hot (mid 80's) so I think running on the cool side is safer.
As always, this is just IMO, YMMV. :up:
I have tons of snails that hatched out of the LR. (alot of the flat shell kind) Problem is that they love the glass and LR. Nobody really crawls around the sand. (a few hermits hit the sand now and then) Any ideas on who in the CUC would go after the sand? btw.. I didn't know these snails would have so many different colors. So far I have black spotted, black stripe, brown stripe, white spotted and all black flat shell snails.
