Aquarium Lighting Settings

[DrPleconstein]

Hi everyone, I have a 75 gallon aquarium with a Fluval planted 3.0 59W light. I got the light probably over 6 months ago and have been really pleased with it. My only issue is that this was my first planted aquarium and I did not fully understand the problem of too much light. I have since backed way down on the photoperiod and intensity, but am looking for the perfect settings. Does anyone have a good reference for this light on the photoperiod and intensity of the different colors?

Additionally, I still have algae on my plants that are slower growing or have older leaves like Anubis and Amazon Swords (see picture). Is there any way to fix this or just to prevent it in the future?

Thanks!

 

[ppate1977]

I have a heavily planted tank. I can never get 100% of the algae to stop slow accumulation on my slower growing plants. It's to the point of where I can just get it off the leaves by lightly touching them though. I do this once a month. I use a 7 hour light cycle, seachem Flourish, and seachem Excel.

Can you easily get the algae off, or do you need to scrape it off? I have been at this for almost 20 years and I haven't quite gotten to where I get zero algae growth.

Good luck. I don't have the exact settings for your particular light, but you can always back off the amount of time the light is on. I used to only run my light for 6 hours a day.
This is what it looks like right before I clean off the plants...

 

[DrPleconstein]

Great looking tank! Thanks for the reply. I have backed off quite a bit and that seems to help the growing on the newer leaves. Unfortunately it is very hard to scrape off. Is that a different type of algae growth?

I use Seachem Flourish regularly (as the bottle states) should I consider adding excel in as well? I also feel like my new growth hasn't had as much color and is almost a little bit transparent on the sword.