Enough nitrogen?

Ok, well, I'm dosing Flourish Excel daily and Flourish (trace) 2 x per week as the bottle instructs.

I'll check out the dry fertilizer (for both nitrates and phosphates). Or, I could just add a few more fish.

 

You could do both. T5HO produce a lot of energy and you will need to add the supplements I suggested to get the healthiest plants. I use all of them on my planted tank.

 

I'll definitely check into the nitrate and phosphate fertilizers. So far the plants are looking very healthy; I've had my banana plant 3 weeks and it has now sprouted 3 new leaves. None of the plants' leaves appear to be changing in color, or wilting, or getting holes, etc.

Since I just tore my reef down about 6 weeks ago, it has been a bit challenging for me to realize that t5s are rather strong for this tank, especially at only 2.5w. per gallon although they certainly have a good PAR rating. Same with the flow, but I'm trying very hard to do well by new planted system.

 

It is quite difficult indeed. At 2.5W per gallon you have very high light for a planted tank. The fixture can be raised to about 2 feet above the tank to reach medium light level. Planted tanks only need about 50 PAR at substrate level to have enough light for most plants.

 

I'm glad you understand. Initially I kinda freaked out when people were suggesting how many fish I could put in my new freshwater tank. My 65g. reef had 2: one banghaii and one small wrasse. IDK, maybe I should put a few platys or mollies in withe corys and betta.

Yes, I understand the lighting much more now than when I first bought the light. Truthfully, I was thinking it was in the low to medium range. I'm starting to see a smidge of algae on some of the lower leaves of one of my plants and I have no idea why. My first guess is I'm simply leaving the lights on too long. However, to me this also indicates that there are at least some phosphates in the water. I've reduced the photo period to about 7 hours. Is that too long? Again, I'm so used to having a 10 hour photo period that 7 hours seems like very little.