Plants growing fast vertically but not sidewards

"Boe" wrote in message ...
My plants are growing vertically fast but not sideways. How do I make them
grow more bushy rather than having them stretching their stems to grow
vertically.

My tank is 3 x 2 x 2 ft.
I turn on my CO2 supply, and 4 tubes of 40W florescent tubes for 7-8 hrs
daily, and apply liquid fertiliser weekly.

Really puzzles me, could anyone advice me, please? Thanks!

There are a few problems that I can see.

1. You have 160 watts over a 90 gallon tank. This is around 1.7wpg.
2. Your tank is 3ft wide, and the lights are 4ft, so the amount of
light
entering the tank is even less than 1.7wpg.
3. Most tanks are 20in., but you have an extra 4in. height, light
lessens as
it travels thorugh water.
4. You don't mention what kind of flourescent tubes. Get tubes that
are as
close to natural daylight as possible
5. Increase the length of light to around 10-12hrs (though I don't
think this
will help with your specific problem)
6. Pinch the growing tips of your stem plants. This will force them
to branch
and form lateral shoots, giving the appearance of bushier plants.

The bottom line is that you must increase your light. The plants are
having to stretch their stems in order to put out leaves where they
will receive enough light to efficiently photosynthesize. Two watts
per gallon is the bare minimum I would suggest to grow nice stem
plants that are full and bushy.

N. Wise