by the way, the fish are fed once a day 4 days a week, twice a day two days a week and unfed for one day!

btw jus to clarify, chill, you are saying that change of substrate at this stage is also not going to affect the situation greatly?
Cheers

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No, it will have very little effect on the algae growth if the CO2 is limited or unstable. Soil substrates should be changed around once every 14-18 months, some suggest 12 months however the amount of waste that decomposes in soil substrates is enough to maintain the substrate's nutriment.

The tubes you currently have are fine, however they are probably due for replacement as you have suggested. It's not necessarily because of the dark discoloration of the tube, but the fact that they lose their effectiveness after around 6-8 months. If you took a LUX reading from a distance of 15cm from the tubes at the time of fitting the new tubes, and another reading six months later, you will see that the luminosity of the tubes has diminished alarmingly.

I would reduce the photoperiod right down to six hours, and consider introducing a 'siesta' where the lights are off for one hour during the early afternoon. When you replace the light tubes, you might want to consider looking at different brands such as tubes from Arcadia or Dennerle, both of whom produce tubes specifically designed for planted aquariums.

Finally, it's also worth bearing in mind that water changes might not necessarily help. The reason for this is because if your tapwater is full of nitrate and phosphate, you would in fact be adding more nutrients to the tank. While excess nutrients aren't necessarily a bad thing in well-planted aquariums, they will cause algae if the plants aren't growing due to other problems. I would recommend testing your tapwater for nitrate and phosphate.

right!

I will look into all this. I think the tap water is quite clean and soft. Its low on nitrates, but not too sure about the phosphates though. I see where this is headed in terms of balance for the carbon availability and other nutrients. I will get the easylife easycarbo (my LFS are unaware of this and recommended other fertilisers that are more generic/iron rich but not especially carbon rich). They asked me to bring in details of this product to them so they can look into ordering it.

Cheers mate. Ill keep you updated on this!

!!!UPDATE!!!

ACTIONS

- About 4 weeks ago i decided to swap substrate. i was in two minds about it, but the crummy topsoil and gravel just did not have the look i wanted to achieve. I went for the JBL manado substrate. I must say that the substrate colour certainly contrasts quite well with the plants green colour.

- Ive not done anything about lights yet though. its xmas and Ive only just secured a job offer. Ill have to wait for my first pay cheque.

- Ive been adding the Easylife-easycarbo solution everyday. I also procured some easylife profito to complement the easycarbo. this is added weekly

- Finally, I also treated once with JBL Algol and a follow up treatment one week ago.

- When buying the substrate, ive also gone for some H. polysperma and some E. densa

OBSERVATIONS AND ALSO SOME CONCERNS

- Consistently, the pH has remained the same (about 6.4), as has the GH (7-14 deg D) and KH (3-6 deg D); however, I have noticed a change in the NO2 (from 0-10 to about 50 mg/L) and NO3 (from about 0 to 5mg/L). ive made 2 water changes….i live in a soft water area btw.

- THERE IS NO ALGAE to report on whatsoever - but this is a small degree of concern - there is NO discernable growth in my plants either. INFACT, the E. densa slowly died. These were good quality plants from my LFS that I selected the healthy looking ones from. The H. polysperma have not grown at all. All my plants seems to be stuck in time. There is no root growth either (I pulled out a couple of H. polysperma to check in desperation)

I have not added any soil fertiliser; only the PROFITO once a week as recommended. I have removed the DIY CO2 reactor I had. I brought lighting to 6h per day and increased in half hour increments per week to 8h per day (I dont plan on increasing it anymore).

Does the substrate need to "mature" in the sense that does it have to collect some mulm before the roots can develop and we can see measurable plant growth?? any ideas on this??
Cheers in advance...