johnjohnjohn87

I replaced it with a pair of Finnex Planted+ 24/7 ACL lights. I'm only running the pair at about 60% for now, as that is already a decent bump in PAR (I think), but plan to increase a bit over the next few weeks. The reason I raised the 3.0 was because I wanted to light the rear of the tank after adding a decent amount of substrate to the rear as well. The narrow beam of light wasn't really working for me so I just raised in a few inches by suspending it from the ceiling. That actually worked well for me for several months before I decided to try replacing the 3.0. Yea, traveling has made it a bit more difficult to maintain everything this time of year hahaha. Good luck with the spot algae! I'm very slowly combating some BBA, but I think the tides have finally turned for me!

I think if you're algae free you can probably bump the light intensity a bit and see how the tank responds over a week. I have similar annoyances with the Fluval 3.0 and it's relatively narrow throw of light. At this point I'm replacing mine, but what helped me was to suspend it over the tank. Any way to raise it up will broaden the area lit in the tank. If you're only at 50%, you have room to increase the lighting, too (to compensate for the additional distance).

Excellent response. I’ve been very happy with my co2art gear and 2hraquarist literally has all of the answers hahaha.

Do you trim at the base of the stem, or at the leaf? Mine have taken off and the leaves are about the height I want them.

You know, the funny thing about this is that I’ll compulsively check mine for a few days dialing things in (thanks, covid). But once it is set (on a Kasa timer), I won’t check it for weeks unless I’m troubleshooting something. One tip is to wait 5 minutes between adjustments to make sure everything doesn’t move because the adjustments are so tiny. You can absolutely get this working!!! Don’t give up! The other thing is that CO2 expands the range of light intensity useful to the plants (Denis Wong), so if you’re not blasting everything with light and your fish aren’t gasping... You are doing just fine! Lower light plus CO2 is an awesome place to be. I didn’t start finding algae problems for myself until I cranked the lights up. I’m Ok with working through these issues because I want a specific result now. edit: the sources I trust for high-tech information are 2hraquarist (Dennis Wong) barrreport (Tom Barr) Green Aqua on YouTube

I’ve never used a drop checker like that (I’m used to the glass ones). But don’t give up!!! Green Aqua on YouTube has some really excellent videos about CO2 and break it down well. It’s really complicated to learn about, but actually doing it is pretty simple.

You’re shooting for sustained lime green on the drop checker. Blue is not enough CO2 and yellow is too much. Relies on gas exchange and a known solution (the drop checker solution). The drop checker functions on pH fluctuation too, but the CO2 rabbit hole is sort of deep if you want to dive in.

I’m sure there are others more knowledgeable that will chime in, but a simple way to hit around 20-30ppm CO2 is a 1 pH drop while gassing. There are some excellent write ups over at barrreport that get really deep into the topic and are worth reading. Just keep in mind that drop checkers indicate where the tank was around 2 hours ago, so go slow on adjustments. Also, pH drop from CO2 injection is non-linear. Honestly, if you find it’s driving you crazy (like me), pick up a pH pen on Amazon. Instant, accurate results. I really like the Apera pH tester pen I have.

I don’t think they make risers for the 3.0, but I just raised mine about 5-6 inches this weekend! Makes a pretty substantial difference and I’ll be able to elevate the rear of the tank and have light there. I ended up going to the hardware store and ceiling mounting it. Took a bit longer then expected but I am really happy with the results. Hopefully PAR at the bottom of the tank won’t take too much of a hit, but time will tell. Good luck!

The removable pre-filter has had me itching for an Oase cannister for months now... Do they use goofy proprietary hoses like Fluval? Very interested in how the Oase treats you over the long term.

Hi everyone! I've been battling BBA for the last month or so and got to thinking about temperature fluctuation. I'll share my setup below, but my question is more general (I know what kicked off my BBA hahaha). Will a few degrees of temperature fluctuation in a high-tech tank cause CO2 levels to fluctuate enough to cause algae? I've got a 90g tank with an Eheim 200W thermostat connected to an external controller. The target temperature is 73-75 fahrenheit and the controller will only power the thermostat to get the tank back up to 75 if it falls below 73. I think it takes about 2 hours to go from 73 to 75, but I haven't timed it (I'm sure it's over an hour). Me and the fish have been happy with the gentile rise and fall of the temps and reduced wear and tear on the thermostat, but I'm not sure if I'm making things harder on myself with the fluctuations.

USB air pump (1/3 watt) + good sized UPS should get you quite a bit of runtime for not that much money. You could then pull the bio media from the canister and stick it in the tank with the bubbles underneath. I think that should get you quite a bit of time if there is a longer outage and keep the bio media alive.

Thank you very much for an awesome response! That covers what I was wondering!

I was just wondering if the technology on USB air pumps (like the Aquarium Co-op ones) was the same as a traditional pump. The reason I’m asking is because I took apart an old pump of mine (from PetCo) to fix and give to my daughter and was kind of shocked at how primitive it was (this one literally rattled itself apart). I could swear I saw a post somewhere about USB pumps using a different kind of motor or something, but that was weeks ago and I can’t find the post. I’m also generally curious about component longevity or if there is a good article I could read about them.

I went back and reread your opening posts again (our newborn is happily destroying our sleep schedule hahaha). Really clever way to slice up the photo periods and I will definitely give this a shot. Thanks for expanding on a fantastic post.