Fluval Plant 3.0 Scheduling and Programming

[Streetwise]

@JoeQ, if the window light is significant, maybe let your light go to zero during that time segment.

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/28/2022 at 12:09 PM, JoeQ said:

Is there a huge difference between a mostly dark 4h siesta mid afternoon (my plants will still recieve window light), VS a greatly reduced (1% on all spectrums) mid afternoon dim down?  Do the plants process the subtle difference in light diffrently?

 

On 6/28/2022 at 2:11 PM, JoeQ said:

I've already started doing 4 hours (12pm~4pm) on the night setting which I believe is 1% on all spectrums. My normal light schedule is Bentleys Day sim 45%, with blue at 30%.  As you can see im battling a good deal of hair algea on account of excessive temperatures, co2 fluctuations caused by aggressive surface aggitation and neglect! Gotta tighten up!!!! 🤣

@OnlyGenusCaps Can you please offer your expertise here to help us with this question? (plants adapting to an open window, artificial vs. natural light)

Joe, maybe the best thing is to just shift the light window and treat the window light as your sunrise?

 

On 1/20/2022 at 7:26 PM, Tomp said:

I really like this lighting schedule.  How are things doing for you?

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/14/2022 at 11:46 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

You can see a pretty drastic difference in the PAR reaching the substrate if you focus on the lefthand seiryu stone next to the ziss filter.

This is the current profile I am running:

For anyone who is interested in the above change I made, adapting from a light that was slightly undersized to one that isn't perfect, but more properly sized to the tank itself in terms of PAR reaching the substrate level, I wanted to update and finalize my comments here on my lighting adjustment. I went from a 24" light to a 36" light on my 30" long tank.

I'll end up doing a more extensive dive into the issues but I want to provide a "TLDR" final bit of context for everything.  I'll quote the original notes from earlier in the thread for anyone who wishes to see them.

On 5/24/2022 at 11:07 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Update on this.

I kept an eye out on the tank after the deep clean and needless to say it worked really well.  Flow increased slightly, but I've been fixing the HoB as well just out of necessity (bypass is dumb).

On topic though, NEW GROWTH IS HAPPENING and it's magical.  It's been a long time and I am so glad to see the larger light hitting the soil hard and the plants reacting to it.  The Dwarf Hairgrass is growing fine, outcompeting the algae right now.  I am still waiting to see new growth on the Staurogyne Repens.

I also verified. I did not adjust the light down. I left it at 90% on the pure white and didn't change anything.

Update #2: I posted some photos and video in my journal regarding growth regarding minor updates (Once I have final details I'll post here).  I did opt to drop the lights down from 90% to 80% about 2 weeks after the light was installed (5/14 --> 5/29).

Update #3: It's now 6/7 and I did opt to turn down the light another 10%.  Anubias is growing, but algae keeps re-growing on the roots.  Staurogyne repens is growing, but is showing signs of algae.  Hardscape was clean, but I am seeing the algae take hold again.  In Lieu of heavily dosing easy carbon, we'll see if lowering this light slightly gives a chance for the plants to catch up.

Update #4: 6/10.  I do see good growth, but the tank is not being fed heavily right now.  As soon as the Amanos eat the BBA/Staghorn it's back twice as dense.  Ultimately no change dropping it that additional 10%. I realized the issue though.  I meant to set the time for a specific "window" but I miscalculated and had the light on for 14+ hours a day.  I've gone ahead and adjusted it down in terms of time and I will report back once I have "good results".

 

 

A few critical notes here:

1. I am very happy that i did this because I feel like I can universally now grow plants that require more intense light.

2. In terms of raw output, not PAR, but actual number of LEDs I think that's a critical factor to keep in mind.  168 LEDs on the 24" vs. 252 on the 36" light. (33% more)  What I would recommend based on this, is to lower your settings by that % difference and then monitor how things change after the upgrade.  If you have a tank and you're adding a second light, I might also use that same formulation in my own tanks in future.

3. When I was able to focus intently on the lighting and plants, I got the tank to a point of having new growth, then added the new light.  I specifically DID NOT want to upgrade the light if I saw the algae outcompeting the new growth.  The cycle for me was new growth ---> stable few days ---> algae bloom ---> algae takes over new growth ---> new growth happens again.  I have cut the lights pretty significantly each time the algae took over and tried to focus on clean / solid water parameters for the plants.

[JoeQ]

@nabokovfan87 things are going fairly well, my flame Boca and rotala seem to like my new schedule. But my ludwigia appears to be getting "leggy". Ideally, id break this light schedule up into seperate days but I don't think my plants will close to process on account of the window light. As for the algea it's still there but growing weaker curly, thin and light green. When it first appeared it was growing straight, thicker and dark green. Im not sure if the lighting made a huge difference. I think whats making more of an impact has been me getting back to a consistent maintenance schedule and cutting back drastically on ferts. One of these days (to fully get rid of it) I should also trim dead/dying growth and replant but for now im having fun playing with my algea! 🤣 

Edit: Also preventing aggressive surface agitation has helped stabilized co2 levels. 

Edited July 4, 2022 by JoeQ

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/4/2022 at 5:58 AM, JoeQ said:

As for the algea it's still there but growing weaker curly, thin and light green.

That's the Otos favorite kind! 😉

On 7/4/2022 at 5:58 AM, JoeQ said:

Im not sure if the lighting made a huge difference. I think whats making more of an impact has been me getting back to a consistent maintenance schedule and cutting back drastically on ferts.

This is the part where I always make the wrong choice.  More light vs. more fert vs. both.  If you're dosing once a week, try twice a week.  If you're already dosing twice a week, I'd tried to bump the light in that spot by 5-10% or try moving the light to give that one plant slightly better direct light and see if that alleviates the growth issue.

[JoeQ]

On 7/4/2022 at 12:00 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

That's the Otos favorite kind! 😉

This is the part where I always make the wrong choice.  More light vs. more fert vs. both.  If you're dosing once a week, try twice a week.  If you're already dosing twice a week, I'd tried to bump the light in that spot by 5-10% or try moving the light to give that one plant slightly better direct light and see if that alleviates the growth issue.

Its the spot, i should really have low plants in that spot but...... As far as fertz, I dose daily and won't reduce fertz anymore. The one thing I should reduce is dead organic material but thats too much like work. 🤣 I'd just rather wait for temps to drop and the algea will clear on its own! 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 7/3/2022 at 4:23 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Can you please offer your expertise here to help us with this question? (plants adapting to an open window, artificial vs. natural light)

So, I did read through a bit of the thread for context, but there's a real good chance I'm missing something.  Let me know if that's true.  I'm gathering that folks are turning their lights off for part of the day as an algae control mechanism, and there is interest in how the plants may respond to the added ambient light from a window during that period.  Is that right?  Am I even close?

Now, I can't say for sure what is happening in a specific case as there are going to be species differences, and conditional issues that will interact to yield the observed outcome.  Basically, I'll aim for giving the general overview, but life is complicated.

Most plants, especially those which can grow well under lower light conditions are pretty sensitive to even low light availabilities.  So, in my house the ambient light during the day in the summer, or in the winter when it is snowy, can be enough to sustain some plants which do not receive direct sunlight.  Even sun adapted species have been shown to be responsive under fairly low light conditions.  Years ago I read a few studies about trees in parking lots responding to the streetlights that are left on all night.  As far as algae goes, the photosynthetic pigments tend to be similar, and I would think they would therefore be similarly activated.  However, there may be system level differences that counteract that - like is being observed in the Reverse Respiration thread elsewhere in the forum. 

In short, if the light coming in though the window is enough, there is certainly a chance it could disrupt a "dark" cycle and negate any favoring of the vascular plants over algae that the cycle may be designed to elicit. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/4/2022 at 3:18 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I'm gathering that folks are turning their lights off for part of the day as an algae control mechanism, and there is interest in how the plants may respond to the added ambient light from a window during that period.  Is that right?  Am I even close?

Correct! The main question being how plants process Ambient/indirect light from a window compared to the more focal light from the fluval LED variety of lights. Is there a major difference in how the plants respond to artificial vs natural light sources and is there any concern, should or shouldn't there be for a "planted tank"?

As an example, I run my LEDs on my room with heavy ambient light at 10% instead of 50% because I know it's a very low demand tank and the anubias hasn't had any issues growing without the light higher up in intensity.

Edited July 4, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[JoeQ]

TI'm not lowering it for algea in particular. Ideally, id like to give me a siesta mid day so I can have longer viewing in the morning and night. I think with placement of my tank and the window it would negate the "siesta" period. 

[Dave K]

Hello,

I have the Fluval AquaSky LED.  It is 12 watts and is adjustable from 16 inches to 24 inches.  I have it on my 20 gallon high tank.  It seems to be bright enough, but I wanted to get some feedback if I would be better off going with a designated Plant light.  Do my red, green and blue settings seem right?  Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions and comments.

 

 

[JoeQ]

@Dave KIt actually might be too much light for your plant mass, I don't think many really understand how incredibly powerful these fluval lights are, heres my (borrowed Bentley Pascoe) aquasky settings on my 10g

Edited July 5, 2022 by JoeQ

[Dave K]

Thanks @JoeQ I think I will lower my settings a bit, especially with the blue.  I seem to be pretty high on that one.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/5/2022 at 10:17 AM, Dave K said:

I have it on my 20 gallon high tank.  It seems to be bright enough, but I wanted to get some feedback if I would be better off going with a designated Plant light.  Do my red, green and blue settings seem right?  Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions and comments.

Considering the height of the tank, probably is "good" for a while.  If anything I'd upgrade to the nano version or 2x of the nano version.  I have a 29G tall and I had a lot of issues with the 24" light reaching the substrate.  I had ran a 24" light for several years and struggled to really get anything beyond anubias working well.  I left it as an anubias tank and that was perfectly fine for me.  If you're running stems, running something higher demand, the plants will thank you for having the plant version of the light because it has a different LED variety and spectrum.  If you're growing anubias and java fern, you're fine with the light you have.

To your question, 24" is probably perfect for the size of tank you have.  I use the 30" on my 29G now because after the struggles above, I realized how small the actual span of LEDs is compared to the width of the light itself.  (remove 1.5" of dimension on either side. so a 24" light is really a 20.5" light and your tank is 30" long)  It's not to condemn anything, but just to point out plant placement and other factors if you run into issues. The Fluval LEDs do have a 120deg spread on them compared to others that are more directional.  I do have the 24" aquasky and the 24" planted 3.0 if you need to see anything of them side by side. No worries at all and I can happily test or show off anything you need to.

As for settings, I would keep blue below 15%, typically below 5% for most everything.  The aquasky tints blue for me and so I tend to push the reds pretty hard. 

 

 

On 7/5/2022 at 10:17 AM, Dave K said:

I would set white at 80-90%, red at 80-85%, green at 70-75%, blue at 3-5% and then see how things do.  this gives you some room to turn things up or down but that's the typical ratios I'd run.  You can opt for a reddish morning and greenish evening if you'd like to play with the pro mode.

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/14/2022 at 3:04 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Updated photos for the sake of comparison.  This is a few weeks of lighting the tank this way with the high ambient light.  I did shift it slightly so that when the living room has the lamp on the tank is also on and set for active hours. (it's a floor lamp with two bulbs that is about 7' to the side of the tank.  It lights up the tank pretty hard)

[Dave K]

Thank you @nabokovfan87 for the helpful information. I am setting my light levels to what you recommended.  What is the brown fuzzy on your plants in the above photos?

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/8/2022 at 6:21 PM, Dave K said:

What is the brown fuzzy on your plants in the above photos?

It's algae.  specifically BBA / Staghorn.

I have had a heck of a time and trying to get things fixed on the final few plants.  They sat in tubs with extremely high light for far too long and got smashed with algae over 3ish months.  They've been in a small 10G tank since winter and I haven't done much to recover them because I've been focused elsewhere.  the fish were in the tank doing well and my focus was on letting the algae be the plant at that point.

I've moved that 10G tank to a 29G tank and that's where I'm trying to "figure it out" with regards to getting the algae to back off and the Anubias to come back.

Please be sure to let us know how the lighting goes for you and how things change over time. Best of luck!

[Adam H]

Hello all. I am so glad I found this forum. I was wondering if anyone could help me with my light settings for my tank. I have a 120 gallon tank that is ~24" tall and ~48" wide. I currently have a few val, some Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green and monte carlo for carpeting. I am using easy green root tabs and all in one for fertilizers.  For light I have a fluval plant 3..0, 6500K 48".  I have gone through a couple issues of algae growths and currently have an issue with hair algae growth. Any suggestions for what settings I should use to promote plant growth and limit algae?  Thank you in advance.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/8/2022 at 11:11 PM, Adam H said:

Any suggestions for what settings I should use to promote plant growth and limit algae?  Thank you in advance.

Can you share your lighting settings right now?

[Adam H]

I currently just use auto mode and switched to these last night after reading other posts here. Prior it was factory defaults 

[John Henry]

Hello @Adam H, welcome to the forum.  You have chosen a great thread to be a part of.  Your tank looks as if it has been setup fairly recently, has it completed its nitrogen cycle yet?  You have purchased a fantastic light, now you need to fill your tank with plants to soak up all those photons.  Everything I have read suggests starting your tank with as many plants as your budget allows.  Right now, algae will utilize the nutrients and photons and try to fill all the space between your plants.  Think about handfuls of fast growing stem plants like Hygrophila and Elodea.  

[Adam H]

Recently converted from a cichlid tank to community. This is my first foray into live plants.  I did just go through a bout of Cyanobacteria. My nitrates are still elevated but I am treating that. 

[John Henry]

As far as settings for your 120 G,  I cannot help you much as  I have only a 20 G.  I suggest you go to Youtube.com and search for "Bentley Pascoe Fluval Planted 3.0" .  He has a great series on the Planted 3.0 and he has a program called "Day Sim" which might be a good starting place for your tank.  His tanks are heavily planted so you may need to start at a lower peak intensity.  Keep us in the loop.

[Torrey]

On 7/9/2022 at 12:11 AM, Adam H said:

Hello all. I am so glad I found this forum. I was wondering if anyone could help me with my light settings for my tank. I have a 120 gallon tank that is ~24" tall and ~48" wide. I currently have a few val, some Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green and monte carlo for carpeting. I am using easy green root tabs and all in one for fertilizers.  For light I have a fluval plant 3..0, 6500K 48".  I have gone through a couple issues of algae growths and currently have an issue with hair algae growth. Any suggestions for what settings I should use to promote plant growth and limit algae?  Thank you in advance.

I don't see CO2, so why don't you test a siesta schedule for a while?

There's been a bunch of discussion around it, but the underlying science resonates.

1. Plants use up the maximum amount of CO2 in the first 3 to 4 hours lights are on

2. Plants respirate out CO2 when the lights are off. Passive CO2 saturation hits maximum 4 hours after the lights turn off.

We can use this to our advantage in low tech systems, by setting our timers to have lights on for a maximum of 4 hours at a time. In new tanks, I start with 3 hours on at a time, until plants start showing growth, then I increase to 2 separate (or even 3 separate)  chunks of time, with the lights on for a *maximum* of 4 hours at a stretch, and lights off for a *minimum* of 4 hours at a stretch.

The prevailing theory is algae can't compete with plants when the CO2 is at maximum saturation, and therefore the plants will consume the most nutrients during the first 3 to 4 hours lights are on. Then, turn the lights off, allow plants to rest (and CO2 to build back up), and after 4 hours repeat the cycle.

I have to work pretty hard to grow algae when I follow this principle, except in new tanks which *need* to go through the cycle of various algal growth that follows a specific schedule:

Brown diatom (new tanks)

Green diatom/green filamentous algae (establishing a cycle)

Green hair algae (cycle starting to balance)

Black Beard Algae/staghorn algae (almost established tank. Excessive growth tends to indicate an imbalance)

Consider the various stages of algae as a tank's "awkward teen stage". Using a siesta time period, and increasing the numbers of plants, will reduce the outbreaks, but won't always eliminate them.

 

I'm still researching cyanobacteria, because I had a pretty bad outbreak of it myself in 2 tanks. H2O2 will get rid of it, but can damage plants and animals. Plants that can be removed and soaked overnight in seltzer water (

) is a great way to eradicate all algae (and bacteria, and pests), but that isn't always practical... so I am trying to identify how to prevent it. Oxygenation seems to be the answer, increased aeration prevented it from coming back.

 

Most folx are not aware, that life on earth as we know it today, is due to cyanobacteria (I didn't even know this until a few weeks ago).

Cyanobacteria caused a mass extinction event by generating oxygen as a byproduct of cyanobacteria metabolism. That mass extinction set the stage for microfauna and microflora to evolve, and then evolve into plants and animals that are dependent on oxygen. While plants are the earth's lungs.... cyanobacteria is literally an oxygen machine. Too bad it suffocates whatever it grows on🤷🏼‍♂️

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/9/2022 at 1:22 PM, Adam H said:

I currently just use auto mode and switched to these last night after reading other posts here. Prior it was factory defaults 

If it's a newer tank and hasn't ran these light settings for a while (or this light for a while), if you start to see algae pop up, I would lower the settings to:

Pure White: 65-75%
Warm White: 60-70%
Cool White (increase): 55-65%
Blue: 1-5% (during lighting window)

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 7/4/2022 at 5:31 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Is there a major difference in how the plants respond to artificial vs natural light sources and is there any concern, should or shouldn't there be for a "planted tank"?

That's a good question without a straightforward answer.  It'll depend on species, as you noted with the Anubias, intensity of the light, and the quality of the light, by which I mean the spectra.  The spectral issues get complicated with LED lights too.  Prior to LED lights we didn't really have the same level of control over the spectra of lights delivered to plants (just in case there are chemists here - yes I know it is possible dope the filaments of metal halides and the phosphorus layer of fluorescents to change the light produced to a decent extent).  In fact, I have had long conversations about the prospect of replacing PAR because if it's insensitivity to spectral variations that can be meaningful to plants.  Anyhow, I should quit while I am ahead here and start to bore folks to tears.  Short answer, hard to say without specifics, but greater intensity will increase plant responses with low light plants being more sensitive.  Nothing you didn't know already, I am sure.