co2 question

Jay

Seachem is the manufacturer, Flourish is the plant line, Excel is a specific product. see link

Excel is a liquid labeled as Excel. It is a chemical that is adsorbed by the plant cells. The cells convert Excel into usable carbon. Excel should be dosed every day or every other day if some plants do not get along with it.

Flourish is a supplement made up of trace minerals and elements necessary for healthy cell function in the plant. It is not a fertilizer (food)! More like a vitamin.

I dose flourish every other day @ 15 ml per 60 gallons.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...fm?c=3578+3746

Jay

andysutt

*shrug*

I can't find the "Excel" locally and have been told they discontinued it and/or replaced it w/ just Flourish.

Either way, my plants get Flourish not Excel and they like it.

I will order offline next time since they seem to not have it locally, and I didn't know any different at the time. But the Flourish product does work well in my tank. I can only imagine what it does w/ the Excel also

FilteredFun

I dose flourish every other day @ 15 ml per 60 gallons.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/pet_supplies.cfm?c=3578+3746

-----------

Hi Jay,

I have been following the CO2 threads with great interest. I have a couple of questions about Excel and a third question about your CO2 injection - misting.

[Q] Did you experiment with various ml quantities before settling on 15ml per 60 gallons every other day?

[Q] If daily lighting and substrate nutrients are applied/maintained at recommended levels, can Excel dosages be applied every third or every fourth day and still be effective?

[Q] Could you please describe and/or post an image of your CO2 "misting" set-up. I am leaning toward a combined effort [CO2 and Excel], but I am quite lost with regards to choosing an appropriate CO2 system/design.

Our planned tank will be either a 72 gallon bow front or a bit larger if budget permits. My wife and I are very excited to establish a planted tank, and I really feel that a combined CO2 injection / Excel application would be ideal.

Many Thanks!
Matt

jmoorepghpa

Let me throw my two cents worth in here. First if you want a cheap quality co2 system go down to your local welding or beer/soda supply retailer. I purchased a 20# refurbished co2 tank for $40. They charged me $13 to fill it after I bought the tank. The company buys them used from Pepsi, cleans, inspects and paints them.....good as new. Next ask them for a quality two gauge BEVERAGE regulator..... mine is made in the US and cost me $45. If you try and buy one designed for welding and combustible gases those are $125 and are not necessary.... a beverage regulator will work fine but you have to get a two gauge. Now you have to get the co2 dissolved into the water. There are a lot of ways to do this. I will attach a drawing of my diffuser/reactor.....it works like a champ, is cheap, very reliable and maintenance free.
Part two is what does co2 do for your tank. Here is, briefly, my experience over the last four years. You can and should read a large number of articles about co2 and ph, water hardness, nutrient ppm etc. etc....... I'm not retyping all that here. Very simply plant growth is determined by a limiting factor. The limiting factor may be light, co2, nitrates, phosphate and to an extent micronutrients. The plants will basically use ALL of one of these factors and when that factor is depleted in the tank plant growth is regulated to the rate at which that factor is replaced. That is a pretty important concept. Now.... light and co2 are the two big factors in RAPID plant growth. More light allows more efficient use of the available co2 and more co2 allows growth with less light. Lastly along the lines of limiting factors is if you use up all of the wrong factor and end up with too much of another you will get an algae problem. Specifically if you have the co2 going like mad and too much light the plants eat all the nitrates and you are left with an abundance of phosphate and light........algae and lots of it.
Now after all that here is my opinion on what co2 does in the planted aquarium inhabited to the level of about 1/2 to 1 inch of fish per gallon of water. Co2 allows RAPID plant growth. Co2 allows you to plant a tank and have the plants reach the desired size in a shorter time. Now here is the kicker.... when your plants are about 3/4 the desired size shut the co2 off..... you don't need it anymore. When everything looks good you don't want the plants to keep growing at that fast rate. Yep thats it. Use it to get the plants up and then get rid of it or your vegetation is just going to grow right out of the tank. As far as chemical balance when using the co2 the fish will usually produce enough nitrates and there is normally more than enough phosphate in the fish food so both of those should not be your limiting factor. Run the co2 at about 12ppm via the ph/hardness test and regulate your light by intensity and duration to make the light the limiting factor which will allow you to keep the algae under control.
OK... all that said here comes the part where people call me nuts. Once your tank is grown up an looks good you probably want to move to slow (normal) or maintenance growth and you can simply get rid of the co2. Lets assume you have good lighting at about 2-3 watts per gallon...... here's the kicker.... the key is aeration. Hear me out. If you super aerate your tank the co2 available from the atmosphere along with good light, nitrates from the fish and a low phosphorus food will give you a crystal clear tank, no algae and a moderate plant growth rate. My 55 has a sand-peat-sand substrate, I have a bubble wall across the entire length and the filter aeration is set on max. I have swords that I can cut down to the sand and will grow to the top of the tank in about 3 months with no co2 injection - the onion plants I have to trim once every two weeks. I have red lud, rotala, bacopa and dwarf sage in my ten gallon tank and run it the same way with good growth. If I notice any leaf yellowing in either tank I add a SMALL amount of the flourish micro-nutrients with iron but absolutely don't overdo that stuff.
To sum up co2 is great for rapid plant growth but good lighting and a formidable amount of aeration produce a more stable established aquarium with a natural growth rate.... lets face it the way nature dissolves co2 in water from the atmosphere is via surface agitation. At any rate it seems to work well for me. Good luck! To make the co2 reactor get a med sized clear gravel siphon and a small pond pump. Cut the nipple off the siphon and drill out the check valve with a bit the same size as the discharge on the pump. Silicone the pump onto the siphon upside down discharging into the siphon. Drill a 3/16 hole about a third of the way down from the top of the siphon. This makes the gas pocket above the water in the tube self regulating. Run your co2 supply line up into the tube from the bottom. Suction cup an zip tie this to the side of the tank about 2" from the bottom, turn on the gas, plug in the pump and there you go... watch the waterfall inside churn the gas down into the trapped water. Watch it though this set up moves a lot of water past the gas and can really crank up the level of co2 quickly. I put the pump on a timer and an hour on/2 hours off cycle seemed to work the best and gave me about 12ppm. Just leave the gas on - it will bubble harmlessly out of the hole you drilled to maintain the level in the tube without being dissolved in the water. With the pump off regulate the gas to put out about one bubble every 3-4 seconds. Make SURE you use a check valve in the co2 supply line. To be honest I never shut the gas off and a 20# tank lasted me 6 months. Also set the pump to run only when the lights are on - if you don't have light you don't need the co2 on. So for about $100 you can have a really sweet gas system if you buy the local stuff and put it together yourself... once again good luck.

jmoorepghpa

Homemade co2 reactor

Attached Images

co2 reactor.bmp (1.34 MB, 12 views)

FilteredFun

To sum up co2 is great for rapid plant growth but good lighting and a formidable amount of aeration produce a more stable established aquarium with a natural growth rate....

Great summary - post!!!!!


Would you please recommend a few products that will produce good aeration.

[Q] Do HOB Bio-Wheel filters achieve this aeration objective?

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...0&pcatid=12320

and/or

[Q] Do you need to produce air bubbles along the bottom of the tanK?


and

[Q] Do you need an aquarium that does not have a cover?

Thanks,
Matt

andysutt

I can't answer the HOB bio wheel thing.
But I dont think the wheels have much to do with aeration other than the filter itself breaking up the top of the water.

I never would suggest a tank w/o a top on it, but thats just my personal preference.

Jay

This is a very important concept for success with a planted tank, healthy plant growth, and eliminating algae problems. The rest of the post, stopping CO2, super aeration etc. is IMO a conclusion based on an obvious observation. The point is you do not need to inject CO2 to have a planted tank. The Dutch did it for decades with phenomenal success.

I like to see my plants grow mature, split, divide, etc. I enjoy the pruning shaping and plant moving and aquascaping that rapid growth gives me. I enjoy experimenting with a nutrient dosing program, I'm going to keep my CO2

I cannot quite reconcile your super aeration and gas exchange comments with the concept of limiting factors. Even with heavy aeration the amount of CO2 dissolved from the room atmosphere is only going to be 5-6 ppm. It is generally recognized that until a minimum of 20 ppm is reached the CO2 becomes the limiting factor

Regards,
Jay

Hey Matt

No. It was a conclusion reached by many planted tank hobbyist who then shared their observations. There is some heavy duty literature and PHD studies available.

Excel is a carbon supplement IMO it should be used as directed for that purpose. There are other uses for Excel we can discuss in the future.

Here is my feeling about a CO2 set up. A ten pound CO2 cylinder is very heavy for safety reasons. You have 800-900 pounds per sq inch of pressure in them. The regulator takes the brunt of 900 pounds from the tank and registers on dial 1, the regulator then steps down the pressure to say 10 pounds on the aquarium side and registers on dial 2. That regulator is the only safety device between me and an explosive gas release <-read that tank rocket. This is the one area I am not going to go cheap on

Fosters and Smith have their regulator on sale for $90. I am going on 4 years with that regulator.

Misting...is an applied theory that says if you can reduce the CO2 gas to a micro fine bubble (mist) then the micro bubble will come in contact with the plant leaf and be absorbed. The plant is in contact with 100% CO2 gas plus the 30 ppm of dissolved CO2. My observation is that it is the best method of CO2 injection I have ever used.

I use a length of tubing. From the local Chinese restaurant a set of chop sticks . Cut a 1/2 inch piece and force it into the end of the tube. This acts as a diffuser to break up the CO2 into small bubbles.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...09&pcatid=4609

Drill the bottom of the strainer cover 3/16 and insert the chop stick tube.

The impeller on the maxi jet 1200 will reduce the bubbles into a mist and blow them around the tank.

There are lots of variations on this theme.

Jay

FilteredFun

The point is you do not need to inject CO2 to have a planted tank.

I like to see my plants grow mature, split, divide, etc. I enjoy the pruning shaping and plant moving and aquascaping that rapid growth gives me.

-------------

Can I safely conclude from these two statements that plant growth will still occur without CO2 injection - albeit much slower?


And, could one of you please recommend a product that creates excellent aeration in a tank.

To this point, I thought aerators were only used in planted tanks when the lights were turned off to offset the absence of photosynthesis which contributes to a higher CO2 content.

Thank You!!!
Matt

jmoorepghpa

I may not have explained my observations right. With super aeration co2 wont be the limiting factor. With good lighting I'm guessing its the phosphates that end up being limiting. My nitrates do rise slowly over time but the phosphates remain low. You are right this is really all just observation on my part. I don't even know if super aeration is a real term but it seems descriptive enough. As far as equipment I just use a good fine pore bubble wall the length of the tank with a strong air pump and I set the filter to discharge at the surface with the aeration setting on maximum. As far as bubble forming at the bottom conventional wisdom says its the surface agitation caused by the bubbles that causes the majority of the gaseous exchange and not the bubbles rising through the liquid..... its when the bubbles reach the surface and pop that the deed is done. A cover is not necessary but with increased surface agitation your evaporation rate will rise significantly. If you are using a filter that hangs on the side of the tank leave the water level lower and the falling waterfall effect will help but you will have to deal with the increased noise. All said this ends up giving me a fairly good looking low maintenance tank. As far as the tanks and regulators what I was describing are all approved for use in the food service industry regarding purity and personal safety. The $45 2 dial regulator was the best they had and that was a wholesale price they extended to me as a courtesy but most places will do that if you come in for a small cash sale and dont have an account with them.