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CO2 Injection
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CO2 and non-CO2 tanks
Hello Scapers
I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences injecting CO2 for the first time a little over a year ago on my 65 and my first impressions running my 16 without CO2 for about 2 months. I have two other 16s coming online soon and I may add CO2 to 1, 2 or all three of them in the future, but I wanted to have both types running now because I enjoy the experiences and challenges of a variety of setups.
To be fair we are not really comparing apples to apples here as the 65 has more room for failure than a 16 as changes (and "oops" changes or oh %&!# !!!) are seen a lot quicker in tanks with smaller volume. In addition as I stated above, the 65 has been online for over a year while the 16 has only circulated water with plants foā¦
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No pH Drop after adding CO2
Greetings! Moving over from Facebook to continue an excellent conversation.......
To pick up where I left off, I set up a DYI CO2 setup with yeast/sugar initially for a 20 gallon planted tank. Once I did some trouble shooting and got that system running, I set one up for my 40 gallon breeder planted tank. You were kind enough to point me to the video of the pH drop to indicate when we're at the correct saturation of CO2 (30 ppm). I got the drop in my 40 gallon tank but the pH in my 20 has not budged. The set ups are identical; 1 liter bottle and air tubing into a CO2 diffuser. The only difference is the diffusers size, I have the small for the 20 and the medium for the 40. The beginning pH of the 40 gallon was 7.8 (I took a picture so I ā¦36 Views
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Morning!
My KH is at 6, so I think we can rule that out. I adjusted down my sponge filter a little more last night before the light turned off and there is really no surface agitation at all and the pH was still 7 this morning so it's not that. I'll move the CO2 setup to a different tank and then test the pH of the current tank in a couple of days to see if it's higher than I think it was when I stared. The CO2 setup is going to move to a 10 gallon tank and I took a pH reading yesterday along with a picture so I can't misremember the starting pH for this tank. maybe that will tell me if the diffuser needs to be upgraded for the 20 gallon; the bubbles coming out are pretty tiny. I'm wondering if maybe the CO2 isn't diffusing well throughout the tank since there's not a lot of water movement? Again though, the 40 gallon had the pH drop (I have a picture to confirm starting pH) and the set up is very similar to the 20 gallon.
Speaking of the 40 gallon, I think the CO2 has been running in that tank for 4-5 days now (I'll have to start marking the bottles with the start date going forward). What changes am I looking for besides the CO2 drop? I increased the light intensity and I'm monitoring the nitrates, which are pretty similar to what they were before I added the CO2. Are the plants so supposed to go insane with growth (that's what I hear happens, an inch a week???). I have several other planted tanks I'd like to use the CO2 setup with, especially to increase the color in some of my red plants in my 6 gallon betta cubes. For whatever reason I'm having excellent luck with growth in those tanks and we may need to have a conversation about proper plant trimming soon!
As always, thanks for your insight, I was about to throw in the towel.