"Dave S" wrote in message
...


I understand that KH is not the culprit for the algae. What I am trying to
do, is to get my water perameters right so that I can install my Christmas
present: a CO2 system :-) Yes, the tank is planted.


Forget your water parameters for now, install the Xmas present straight away

You say you have a kh of 150, thats about 8 degrees Right? and your ph is
7.5. I don't have the co2 chart with me right now (look for chuck gadds
website, he has a co2 chart) but I reckon you should try and push the ph
down (with the co2) to just below 6.5. Are you injecting the co2 into a
filter intake? You need to try and maintain co2 at between 25 - 30ppm all
day long.


What is your current light cycle?
The current light cycle is 2 x 36w for 12 hours per day and a further 2 x
36w starting one hour after lights on and finsihing one hour before lights
out.
Size of tank and ammount of light?
Size: 400litre. However in terms of measuring the water capacity I deduct
20% for substrate and decoration etc. Therfore I calculate the capacity as
320litres.

So you have close to 1.5wpg. That sounds perfect. Buy yourself 2 cheapo
light timers, put 2 bulbs on each timer, the first 2 lights should come on
say early morning (8am?) and should continue for 10 hours. The second pair
of lights should come on at 10am and can be shut off at 4 or 5pm. YMMV but
this routine seems to work very well for me, you can fine tune this later to
suite your needs.


Fishload?
1.5
Water changing routine?
Once per week @ 20%


Once per week is good but change more water...say 40-50%.
Have you thought about ferts yet? Let me know and I'll try and walk you
through those aswell. You will need to start dosing as soon as the co2 gets
going, or else you'll end up with maximum algae. HTH
--
"In the beginning, God said the four-dimensional divergence of an
antisymmetric,
second rank tensor equals zero, and there was Light , and it was good."