# First Low Tech Soil Based Tank Ideas



## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

If you can run the light with just one bulb that might be the answer. Then if you need just a little more light, can you run each bulb separately? One light would be on most of the time, the other would just be on for a couple of hours. Mid-day burst. 

One species of schooling fish and a few Otos for algae. 

Excel + EI + soil substrate is fine. You will be adjusting the EI dosing down to suit what happens in the tank. My low tech tanks had so much N and P from fish food that I ended up dosing K2SO4 more than the others just to add K without more N or P than they needed.


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## xiaoxiy (Dec 18, 2012)

I tried running the light fixture with one bulb. Apparently it needs both bulbs in place to work, so I layered 2 sheets of fiberglass window screening over the bulbs (in between the bulbs and acrylic cover glass). The only worry I have about that is, I really hope the fiberglass screen is heat resistant. 

Hopefully I've reduced the PAR enough. I think Hoppy estimated a 70-75 Par without fiber glass screen, and I read somewhere that 2 sheets of screen lowers the PAR by around 60%. I'm estimating that I'm between 28 and 30 PARs right now. This should put me into low-light. I might actually try only 1 sheet (40-45 PARs) with the Excel dosing.


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