Algae take over

[Ashley]

Help! I’m looking for thought on what setting I should be using on my Fluval 3.0 plant light. I have a 36 gallon bow front tank with glossostimas  as a carpet and petite anubius on some drift wood.  This is a fairly new set up in an established tank, however I’ve become over run by green/brown algae and a little green hair algea. I would greatly appreciate any help or thoughts.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Hi there Ashley. Welcome to the forum. Lots of people love the Fluval light. You should check out this thread to help you with programming and dialing in your needs...

Fluval Plant 3.0 Scheduling and Programming

 

[Patrick_G]

Wecome @Ashley! 
My recipe for algae control with a Fluval light:

I run my light at about 50% with 0% blue light. It’s on 8 hours with a ramp up and down. I have some Amano shrimp and Otocinclus and I add a dose of Seachem Excel occasionally. The green/brown algae might be diatoms, I find they go away with time but the Otocinclus love to eat them. The green hair algae is fairly easy to remove. If you gently brush it with a toothbrush it’ll stick to the bristles for easy removal. 
 

The two plants you mentioned are opposites in their light requirements. If you have enough light to keep the glosso carpet growing you’ll probably need to keep the Anubias shaded to avoid more algae. 

[Ashley]

Thank you for the advice! I will certainly this. I’m still new to fish keeping ( little less than a year) and still have SO much to learn. 

[JoeQ]

Hi Ashley, i also have a 36gallon bowfront and a fluval 3.0. I finally started to understand this light after watching lots of Bentley Pascoe videos. I currently run his DaySim settings at 30 ~ 45 percent  depending on plant height. If you give me a bit I will send you some settings you might want to try. I also made a daysim spread sheet that will calculate settings based on a particular reduction percentage but haven't shared it yet. Let me know if you are interested and ill send you a copy. 

[JoeQ]

Here is DaySim30percent

[JoeQ]

And 35 percent 

 

One of the things that I think is important with this light is it's not a set it and forget it light. It's intensity needs to be adjusted according to plant height. It could just be me but realizing that has made this light much more user friendly. 

[Ashley]

Hi @JoeQ, what an amazing breakdown. Thank you so much for sharing this. I’ve only had this light for a couple of weeks and have not messed around with the pro setting yet. Definitely going to dive into it after checking out some of your settings. Thanks again!

[JoeQ]

@Ashley if you want a really good indept video series, look up Bentley Pascoe, he did a excellent 3 part video series on the 3.0 that really simplified the light. These settings are what I shared, if anything I just did the math so they could be used in a non co2 setup. 

[Ashley]

@JoeQ Perfect. I’ll do that.