My herbs wont grow

[dnorton1978]

Hey guys. and gals.

I cant get my plants in my fuge to grow. I use a flashlight a couple of hours per day and nothing..Lol.

Actually I just have regular dual strip light above my fuge, about 40 watts total. THe area my calupra takes up is only about 15 gallons or so. My fuge is a total of 40 gallons. Feather dusters grow like weeds, but the weeds grow like rocks. Is it truly my light? A LFS i know of has a fuge with regular ligting and there's grows nicely. I do have a decent amount of flow running through there too.

Ideas thought suggestion? Just bored and want to give a shot out, go ahead, I don't mind.

 

[dnorton1978]

fogot to mention, i have a little bit of cheato, that is now turning red on the ends. My calupra start going whitish on the ends. Currently I have not been able to buy any new calupra, but what little bit I have is holding on, i think. Okay

Oh i want to give a shot out to Shavo and MR X, for keeping it real!!!!

 

[dnorton1978]

come on guys, any guesses? I turned off my skimmer today. I was advised by someone that perhaps the macro is starving. I will leave skimmer off for at least a day.

Could it be also that I always use a filter sock? Perhaps that sucks up the food I feed too????

 

[mr_X]

i use a 6400k bulb on my fuge, and shavo uses a 5000k bulb on his- mine is a 125 watt plant grow light (alittle overkill :? ), and shavo's is one of those 23 watt curly Q energy saver bulbs in a 7 dollar home depot clip on fixture. i have a 10k strip light on my 20 gallon with macros init and they don't grow well there. i believe you need yellow/red light. not white/blue.

 

[dnorton1978]

So color is the key?

 

[Anonymous]

Partly color and partly intensity, AFAIK. Anthony Calfo recommends metal halides over macro and fast flowing water. These are ideal conditions, clearly and won't suit everyone's budget/set-up, and macro will grow otherwise, but it'll do better with brighter lighting.

As X says, the 6400 par rating is best for plants as well.

Calfo's book on coral propagation has some interesting stuff about refugia. Well worth checking out.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0971637105/?tag=reefs04-20

 

[mr_X]

yes..i believe color temp plays a big part. that's why high pressure sodium fixtures are big in the hydroponics hobby.

http://www.3rlighting.com/tutorial/grow ... lide5.html

 

[shavo]

hey Dnort. whatever X said, he got me a light fixture from walmart. it is a cheapo science project looking thing but I have to tell you. whatever he said about the bulbs because i don't know. but I can not stop my fuge I just delivered a basketball size bushel of cheato to my LFS two weeks ago and I have another one that I need to get rid of and it is bigger than the last one. also my bubble calerpa is now unstoppable, the cheato is out of control. I have a science project fuge. thank god it is under the stand and not noticeable.
thanks X though it is working too good.

Dnort here is how I am running my system right now. during the day time when my light cycle is on my skimmer is off and so is the lighting in my fuge. after the light cycle in my tank is over my fuge light kicks on and so does my skimmer. I used to run the fuge and lights on the same cycle which meant my fuge was getting about 10 hours or so of light. Since i switched it over to the night cycle for the fuge to turn on lights and skimmer it has taken off. I know everybody here has the skimmer going 24/7 but not the shavs. I am stubborn and still don't think it is necessary every minute of the day. My tank gets caught up at night and my fuge is honestly almost uncontrollable. i may have to throw out some macros if i can't find somewhere to bring them or somebody to give them to. give it a try and see. my lighting cycle is about 14 hours on the fuge. and go to walmart and buy a little light fixture that has a metal reflector and whatever bulb X said I was using. it is going really well for me.

 

[shavo]

.com

 

[The_Orca]

Shavo gave me my plants about a month and a half ago. I have feather dusters growing out my a$$. LOL But I just realized that they didn't seem like they were growing but after staring at them ..they were getting dense. Meaning they are growing but instead of out ward they are growing inside the same clump. I didn't think mine were growing but if you grab a big clump and pull it apart you might realize you have more than you thought. I'm using a 60 watt energy saver bulb that puts out 13 watt's.

 

[dnorton1978]

thanks everyone