need some help

[cutlass79500]

I am redoing my 125 gal freshwater aquarium and have a few questions. First it has grow bulbs in the lights the bulbs are not bright enough and i dont need the growlux bulbs its has a sigle bulb lamp x2 36 inches long i am trying to keep algie away all my plants are plastic i do have an air bubbler in the tank that spins the waterwheel on the house. I put some ornaments in the tank that had algie on them i scrubbed them even tho they were not in water for a year or so. All of a sudden i noticed they turned green then it spred to the white rocks then to the sides of the tank. The tank gets 0 sunlight its in my rec room under ground with no windows. i am planning to clean it out and replace all the rocks.with natural river pebbles . I have 2 sucker cats and 4 algie eaters but never see them i look every night either they are lazy or just hiding I have to do this with the fish in the tank so i will hook up my d.e. filter while i am doing it. I am going to put an underground filter in it also (sometimes the fish get over fed) I was thinking of getting a duel bulb t5 flouresent fixture with regular bulbs to brighten it up if i cant get bulbs to replace the grow bulbs ( need opinions) it also has led moon light bulbs (don,t know if it does but makes a great nightlight). i Bleached the ornamnt been soaking it it hot water for about a week keep changing the water to get any bleach residue out i am going to paint it with fusion paint.
Next i got a really nice big peice of driftwood had it soaking for over a month cant get it to sink. I have driven all over the place to find a peice of slate to attach it to but i can't find any even tried the landscape stores. i have a big stepping stone natural rock that will work but i dont know if it will hurt the fish can attach a picture if it will help i have no idea what it is called and dont want to harm the fish its been soaking for several weeks.
any opinions or suggestions would be a great help thanks

[korith]

Usually stock light fixtures are not good enough for keeping live plants. Best bet would be to replace the stock hood with a glass hood, and get another light fixture. Ideally you would be looking to get 2-3watts per gallon. Moonlights are nice, spotlight certain spots in the tank.

Do you have high phosphates in your water? Might explain the algae breakout.

For the driftwood, can take weeks, or even months to get it waterlogged enough to sink. If you are patient enough just take the driftwood and put it in a bin of water outside or somewhere out of the way, and give it to some time. Just do water changes every once in a while.

You can test the rock, by putting a few drops of vinegar on it. If it bubbles don't use it. Some rocks will affect the hardness and pH of the water also. Most rocks should be fine though.

[cutlass79500]

will try the vinegar trick. The driftwood has been under water for a month and a half every week i change the water out fill it with hot water getting tired if waiting lol . i believe the algie might be my fault the rocks i put in the tank are from my old tanks that i had outside sitting in a bucked for several years there is no telling what was growing in the water . I rinsed them with hot water before putting them in the tank. When i re do the tank in the next few weeks scrubbing new, rock ect i want to do it right really cut down on the chance of it coming back. i think i am going to buy a 4 light t5 fixture it will be only 48 inches long but i think it will brighten the tank up you can hardly see the background with the factory lights . I made a light holder for the led i believe there are 29 of them spaced evenly. I also have 3 small led spots i mounted in there that point on the roof of the waterwheel house looks good just like moonlight i also installed a 3 led red light inside of the house so when you look through the front porch looks like there is lights on in the house. the bubbles come out of the chimney so i am going to paint the roof white so it looks like snow. The driftwood is a rather large peice its 13 in tall and 24 inches wide with places for the fish to swim thru and hide came right out of the Chattahoochie.