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My venture into my new 760 ltr planted tank .

Most of my stems are showing real signs of growth and looking good. Still having a crypt melt but I have pumped up the Co2 and increased the amount of feed after every water change. I am still changing 50% per day to keep on top of the ammonia that must be being produced in abundance at the moment . Its very hard to keep the base really clean at the moment with the plants not routed very well yet so I hope that the water changes will make up for it. I will have a good clean just before lights off and then a 50% water change tonight. I will still have the programmed water change in the morning. I hope this will just help to keep on top of any ammonia build up.

Simon
 
I am assuming that my crypt decay will be producing that . As the rest of the system is not matured yet I am taking no chances.
water changes and dosing is easy to do.

Simon
 
During the day I am pumping all this Co2 into the tank are there any benefits in adding more O2 during the darkness .
My sump adds some O2 which I can't prevent as it draws it down the sump feed pipes. This I suppose will be richer in O2 after the Co2 has gone off but how much I have no idea.
Any thoughts on this.

Simon
 
Always Broke said:
Most of my stems are showing real signs of growth and looking good. Still having a crypt melt but I have pumped up the Co2 and increased the amount of feed after every water change. I am still changing 50% per day to keep on top of the ammonia that must be being produced in abundance at the moment . Its very hard to keep the base really clean at the moment with the plants not routed very well yet so I hope that the water changes will make up for it. I will have a good clean just before lights off and then a 50% water change tonight. I will still have the programmed water change in the morning. I hope this will just help to keep on top of any ammonia build up.

Simon

Simon, I think the Crypt melt could be because the Crypts dont like change. My Crypts were all looking great until I decided to change from RO water to HMA filtered water. Having done this adfter a few days I had extensive Crypt melt. I left well alone and they gradually accustomed to the change.
 
Hi,
I impose change on my crypts all the time and they never melt. I can dig them up, cut their roots and re-plant them elswhere, I can put new emmersed plants in the tank and I can change the water type and they never miss a beat. If you have crypt melt after changing water then this tells you that your CO2 is not at optimum levels. If you buy new crypts and they melt after planting then this tells you that your CO2 is not at optimum levels. If you pull up a crypt and re-plant it at another location and they melt then this also tells you that your CO2 is not at optimum levels. Again, it doesn't necessarily mean that your CO2 is poor - just that it's not optimized.

The concentration of CO2 does not affect the concentration of O2. In any liquid the concentration of a gas in that liquid will depend on the pressure and concentration of that gas which is in the atmosphere above. Adding CO2 under pressure within the liquid only affects the concentration of CO2 in that liquid and has no relation to any other gas dissolved in that liquid. In other words, the behaviours of these two gases are independent.

If the concentration of a gas dissolved in the liquid is higher than atmospheric then the gas will move from the liquid to atmosphere, and vice-versa. During the photoperiod you are adding CO2 under pressure to the liquid and the plants are doing the same with O2. When the lights and CO2 go off, this stops and both gases, being at higher partial pressure in the water will find their way out of solution towards atmosphere but they will do so at their own rates.

Your sump is therefore out-gassing both of these gases until each reaches their independent equilibrium concentrations. Oxygen has a lower equilibrium concentration than CO2. So really, your sump, if exposed to atmosphere is acting as a vent. Ideally, you'd want the sump sealed against atmosphere until the concentration of O2 fell to at or below atmospheric equilibrium concentration level. Only then would it actually add O2. Since there is no inexpensive way to monitor and control this, I would seal the sump and leave well enough alone. You want to delay the out-gassing of CO2 because this makes it easier to get the CO2 levels up to optimum levels before lights on. The penalty is that O2 levels may fall below equilibrium levels - but higher CO2 levels will enable the plants to more easily replace the O2.

This is the same conundrum faced by those non-sumped tanks using an airstone at night. A bit of a Catch-22, really.

Cheers,
 
So lets look at another option . What is the best way to dissolve the Co2 better in the water.
For instance. What if my return pipe from the sump pump to the tank was say 4" in diameter instead of 40mm.
The water would flow slower through this diameter of pipe and increasing the contact time with the Co2 . Same principle as an in line reactor I suppose.. Would this increase the amount of gas dissolved in the water.

Simon
 
Simon,
Weren't you using a diffuser mounted inside the sump? Or was that someone else? I didn't have the energy to review all 25 pages here so I apologize for my absentmindedness. Seal the sump and just inject the CO2 via standard disc (the largest available.) The return pump will also chop up whatever remaining bubbles there are. As long as your organ pipes or whatever you have is sealed then the sump is your reactor. I wouldn't bother to make things more complicated. Correct me if I've misinterpreted something mate.

Additionally, the issue may not be that you are not diffusing it in the sump properly. It may be the way in which you are distributing the flow in the tank. I thought I remembered you showing the outlet into the tank where it was a gang of outlet ports very close together? I tend to spread my outlet flow across as much length as possible via spraybars but your technique may tend to be "point source" where all the outflow is ejected from one corner, so the dissolved gas has to migrate to the far reaches of the tank. It's hard to remember everyone's configuration. i might be confusing your tank with tels. Distribution inefficiency can only be addressed by either increased pump flow or by injection rate increase.

Cheers,
 
The water return is via a 2mtr long 40mm diameter spray bar the full length of the tank between the weirs.

DSCF0032Medium.jpg


At the moment the Co2 is injected straight into the input of the 10,000 ltr an hour return pump.

DSCF0007Medium-2.jpg


I will try injecting it into a defuser in the sump chamber which is easy enough to seal. The rest of the sump will need a bit of thought on how to seal it

Simon
 
One big step I have done is I have stopped 95% of the atmospheric air entering my stand pipes in the weirs. This should help a lot as I was getting huge amounts before.
I will play with diffusing the Co2 better before it gets to the return pump and sealing the sump.

Simon
 
It was not a case of sealing them more a case of playing with the flow valves on the ends and the air valves on the Durso stand pipes. I have one set to full syphon controlled by the valve on the end and the air bleed shut.The second is set up as an overflow . This just has a trickle of water going down it. The full syphon one draws no air at all. The overflow one draws a very very small amount . Took a couple of hours of messing, but the whole system is silent now apart from you can here the bubbles in the bubble counter .
These are the flow valves in the sump.

DSCF0037Medium.jpg


Come up with a few good ideas to seal the sump but allow access for cleaning. Will work on that over the next few days if I get the chance

Simon
 
i see how that works clever but im not sure how the other end works if you get a power cut does the syphon not brake
 
danmil3s said:
i see how that works clever but im not sure how the other end works if you get a power cut does the syphon not brake

Will find out when my water change takes place.

Need so advice on my lighting
I have 8 39w T5 tubes. At the moment I am running 4 of them. Is it ok to run all 8. That gives just under 2wpg .
Or am I better just running the 4 which I presume requires less Co2 .

Simon
 
i am sure it has been said before, if you think of light as the driving force the more light you have the more co2 and ferts maintance are required.

some plants dont like high light levels like all Anubias, i would use the amount of light that you can keep up with and is most sutable for your plants. both my tanks run about 1.4 w/g
 
I've never had an issue with anubias in highlight, it's a matter of getting the ferts right, they're trace hungry.
I echo the advice though, lower your light for a while, run 4 get everything stable then up them if you want/need the extra light.
 
i was just looking at the reccomended light levels in the tropica book and the anubias are the only plants that dont have a high light dot!!
 
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