Hi there tom and company,

I'm realatively new to succesful planted tanks. (well.... your ideas of success might vary from mine :-) I've gotten good at making the plants grow anyway, by leaps and bounds! I'm having a bit of an issue with BBA in my hairgrass, but we all know the thousands of posts related to that.

My question is this (and I think it MIGHT tie in) I keep my lighting at 8 hours on a timer right now (I might move it up to ten when everything settles in a bit more) anyway, I like to view my tank in the evening when I'm home, so I have the timer start at ~3pm a few hours before I get home. It's not near enough to any windows for that to affect anything. I am currently using the "pmdd" version of Tom's EI regimen outlined elsewhere in this forum. (with great success as far as growth and color goes) Should I dose when I get home from work (3 hours of Co2 and lights before the daily does) or before I leave in the morning? (~7 hours of ferts in the water column before the lights come on)

which is the lesser of two evils? Or am I thinking on this too much, as I'm non-limiting everything anyway, so there should be SOME left over by the time I get home in the evening to dose again.

I just don't want my daily dosing TIME to be a factor in the BBA that's creeping into my tank.

I just installed a new (DIY) Co2 reactor which is putting a LOT more of the Co2 into my tank than the previous (glass bell type diffuser) so this should help a lot as well...

I would say it does not matter.

The issue you have is far more relevant......poor CO2, pruning care etc.
BBA ....in other words.

I'd fret much more about this than anything to do with a daily, or time of day etc issue, reducing light also helps take any pressure off CO2 and nutrient levels.

Time of day of the dose, while some like to talk.............and that's about all it has EVER amounted to, really does not matter much.

Not one aquarist has ever shown it does to date, they are just musings at best. I'll happily eat those words if anyone can show me a study showing higher rates of growth plant biomass using the time of day for daily dosing that influences dry weights.

Till, then.........it's not much more than belief.
Spend your time and effort elsewhere
I dose generally when I feed.
Whenever that is/might be.


Regards,
Tom Barr

well thanks for the info.

as far as the Co2 goes, as I said, I've upped the levels there significantly. (I'm running pressurized btw, I just don't have an external reactor on this specific tank because it's ten gallons and doesn't run any canisters, etc so I am using the Elite mini filter method described on a few other forums to dispers/disolve the gas. I'm not sure how long it takes to see significant change from increased steady Co2 levels (I've just switched to this method a few days ago) but I'm being patient.