co2 and air

[petergriffen]

i have recently added a diy co2 2 litter bottle. my tank is 10 gallon and have 2pwg of light. i've been trying to grow plants. now the cory is swimming to the top of tank to go ait every once and a while. he is also very slow. would adding air bubble to the tank hurt the co2 for the plants?

 

[hyunelan2]

Typically whenever you agitate the surface (by air, powerhead, filters, biowheels) you are allowing CO2 to escape the tank, as it dissolves out of the water into the air fairly easy. What method are you using to diffuse the CO2 into the water? Are your other water paramaters normal?

 

[petergriffen]

the co2 is going into the bottom of the filter. also ph is a bit low 6.8 and i dont own any other testing equipment becuase i am really poor at this time.

 

[Viciente]

You need to test your water to see how much disolved CO2 there is present.
A good resource to tell you how to do this is here:

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

Your CO2 levels should be between 10 and 25ppm (parts per million).

If you don't have the test kit to test for CO2 levels, I suggest you pick up the proper kits so you can. If you are going to grow plants in your tank, knowing your disolved CO2 levels are essential.

 

[petergriffen]

okak ill look into getting a kh test, also what exactly is kh? i've also has a lot of hair algea lately.

 

[Lotus]

If you read the "background science" on the link above, you should get a better understanding of what KH is and how it fits into the equation for CO2.

It's really, really important that you test frequently when setting up a CO2 system, or you can easily kill your fish.

If your fish are gasping at the surface, there isn't enough oxygen in the tank, so you need to increase surface agitation. I'm not a fan of decreasing surface agitation to increase the concentration of CO2, as it often ends with dead fish.

 

[Viciente]

I'm not a fan of decreasing surface agitation to increase the concentration of CO2, as it often ends with dead fish.

That is why I am a fan of pressurized CO2 systems... All you need to do is just crank up the pressure and your CO2 levels rise.

But you still have to monitor your systems...
Best way to have a solenoid attached to your CO2 system, so that when the light goes out, your tank doesn't inject any more CO2.

Keeps everyone happy.

 

[petergriffen]

yea i read the article and understand it. i guess i need to change the water and not add the buffer next time to figure it out.

 

[echoofformless]

One thing that most people dangerously forget when dealing with plants is that they breathe oxygen at night.

That means that when the lights go out, they begin depleting the oxygen in the aquarium. Now of course the surface agitation does help bring more into the tank, but if it's heavily planted and being fed additional CO2, the O2 levels might not be replenished enough for the fish to comfortably respirate.

I think it's best therefore to feed the CO2 in the morning, and, if the tank is very heavily planted, create additional surface agitation or aeration at night.

I'm frankly surprised at how many of us ignore this simple fact. I wonder if maybe adding straight O2 at night, and straight CO2 in the daytime would result in even more lush plant growth than with just the standard CO2 method. Just a hypothesis.