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Many roads lead to Rome. One should experiment to find the most convenient and effective solutions. The plants will tell you immediately what works and what doesn't. They never lie. Cheers,

Also, you are definitely doing or thinking something fundamentally wrong if you calculated 96ppm. How did you obtain this number? Cheers,

No. The speed at which the gas escapes is more or less the same. What does change at 22 deg. is that the water will have a higher gas solubility than it does at 25 deg., which is a good thing. No. Cheers,

When we add CO2 we are not concerned about limiting pH swing. Too many hobbyists worry about pH without fully understanding what this measurement actually is and they waste a lot of energy trying to control it. An insight into pH is provided the post=> Unlimited nutrients using E.I. The reason...

The DC does not care what the KH of the tank water is. As long as you are using only 4DKH water in the DC whatever pH it registers will be a direct reflection of the CO2 concentration in the tank water. The ability to dissolve CO2 in water is independent of KH. Cheers,

Hello, The best metric is the condition of the plants and the health of the fish in the tank. It's not worth losing sleep over bubble rate. This only means that you will have to refill twice as often as you had planned on. In any case you can always reduce the bubble rate and then...

As Zeus mentions, we really try to discourage folks from using the pH/KH/CO2 chart because it has caused so many problems for hobbyists, mainly due to their lack of understanding of the nuance and function of the data in the chart. So there is no guide, per se, only some explanation of what the...

Hello, As Zeus and plantnoobdude mention, you will have a lot of difficulty getting things right using chemical DIY CO2. Not recommended at all. You can follow the CO2 fire extinguisher method described in the tutorial Fire extinguisher CO2 It may seem intimidating, but it is not...

That's true. In a CO2 injected tank the unit does not add any more oxygen during the photoperiod because the solubility of oxygen is extremely low. It's the same reason we see oxygen bubbles when the plants are pearling. The oxygen production rate exceeds the solubility. At night (and early in...

Hi Karl, Well you know, I don't even want to get into the twinstar just because of their bullcrap marketing about how it enables plants to compete against algae, as if nutrients caused algae. All of that is total rubbish as you well know. Having said that however, anything that...

It's not crucial unless you observe the animals in the tank suffering. Oxygen is at it's lowest value in the morning before the lights go on as both animals and plants consume it during the night. The airstone or agitation helps to bring oxygen into the water but should be turned off when the...

Yes, that what THEY mean. Unfortunately THEY have not fully explained the nuances and if you follow the advice on the card you will fall into a trap and will always suffer problems by underestimating your CO2 content. No. This is yet another illusion. There is only one way, for a given pressure...

You Da Man! Cheers,

Yes, exactly! That's the one. Thanks, I'll have to go spelunking to dig that one out. :drowning: Cheers,

Hi, I have used the Aquamedic unit (which is actually an in-line unit) and it works very well. It works even better if you remove the balls. The downsides are that it is a large unit, almost a foot long (30 cm) and with many reactors they tend to accumulate gas inside the canister. This...

Hi, That's never going to happen. You cannot play ping-pong with water in a bathtub. In any case I fail to see a problem with this tank. I mean, it looks amazing. If you are not having any problems with plant health I see no reason to make any changes. Again, if the need arises then you...

Have a look into Mazzei Injection Not a plug-n-play solution, by any means but is potent and is designed for large scale industrial use. Cheers.

I'm sure there are better diffusers out there. Check our sponsors. You shouldn't need to rebuild the unit to make it work. Cheers,

Hello, CO2 application is wasteful by definition, so you'll really need to get over that aspect of it. Only about 10% of what we inject actually makes it into the plant beds. The rest evaporates into thin air. A simple ceramic diffuser ported into the inlet of the return pump is really...

Hi, The disk may have gotten clogged with algae or other debris. Do you regularly clean it by soaking in bleach? Cheers,

Hi, Yes this is reasonable. Sometimes economics plays a role as well which may hinder some options. In any case, I don't think life has to be so complicated all the time if we are able to stick to the fundamentals. As noted in our sticky, we suggest spraybars mounted close to the surface...

Yes, I also prefer to have a more muscular filter, but I think Nigel is getting the picture now. It takes a while to learn this stuff. Hobbyists are not experts in oceanography or in computational fluid dynamics, so even when we offer sound advice, it's from10,000 miles away, we don't always...

Yes, exactly. This is why it's not a good idea to rely on the table as it doesn't really tell you anything useful and can get you into all sorts of trouble. As usual, we have to ask the standard question; what water are you using in the DC? If you are using tank water or tap water then the...

Hi Nigel, Yes that's the right idea but I agree with Easternlethal and Mooner that it's such an obnoxious looking pump. I assumed incorrectly that you had something more petite, like a Koralia or similar. Adding multiple and much smaller powerheads will satisfy flow requirements as...

Well, here's the thing: You really want to optimize your CO2/flow/distribution first and foremost. The penalty you may pay in the short term is to damage a few boards, but what you learn from implementing the procedures is worth more than a few boards. After you are able to optimize the behavior...

Hi,yes I fully agree with your point. I simply happen to know from experience, based on the size of the tank, that the 8 or 9 or 10 bps will never make the grade. We also happen to know anecdotally that blue DC is not good and that a bright lime green is the goal, especially in these days of...

Hi Nigel, The DC should be filled with distilled or RO water adjusted to 4dKH only. Tap water will have impurities that will currupt the readings. 4dKH water is sold by our sponsors as well as other on-line establishment. If you want to prepare it yourself you can just buy the...

Thank you for the additional data. This is mistake #1. The holes in the spraybars should be angled upwards ever so slightly. This is mistake #2. Any auxiliary pumps being used must supplement the output energy of spraybar by being place as closely as possible and directly below the spraybar at...

Hi, Yes, agreed. That's why we encourage folks to study the sticky thread Water flow in the planted aquarium? as well as other threads regarding diffusion techniques.. Having said that, however, no understanding of diffusion properties will help unless the injection rate is appropriate. As...

I agree with Zeus. There is no way to saturate a 5 foot tank with a measly 8 bps. At that size bps isn't meaningful. Increase the bubble rate until the DC turns green instead of setting an arbitrary rate and expecting the DC to cooperate. Your target should be to drop the pH by about 1 unit...

Hello Thomas, That's a beautiful tank, well done so far. Yes it is true that when your plants suffer CO2 deficiency and yet animals suffer hypercapnia then it's a safe bet that flow/distribution needs investigating. I don't know what an inline skimmer does or how it works as I...

Hello Simon, Glad you find the information useful. There is not much you can do to stop the fungal growth. It's just something we have to put up with. After a while underwater the growth will not return. Just continue to wipe clean as it appears until it stops. No need to buy...

Hello, Yes, all of that is correct. If the natural pH of the tank is 8.2 then your target pH is 7.2. At the end of the day however, it doesn't really matter if you are a few tenths off or not. Some probes (or reagent kits) cannot even measure that closely and 30 ppm is a mythical...

Hello, As noted above fish really do not care about pH, which is really just a calculation of the ratio of the concentration of acid ions (H+) to the concentration of the alkaline ion (-OH). Since this is a ratio, by itself the number itself does not tell us much and does not mean much...

The goal is a 1 pH unit depression by lights on and If your starting pH is 7.1 then your target pH should be 6.1 and that 6.1 should happen at lights ON. The trick is to have an injection rate high enough, and to start the injection early enough to achieve 6.1 by lights on and to not have the pH...

Hi Simon, There's a lot of work writing a book. Maybe we do a movie first and then publish the screenplay haha. OK, but I really wouldn't get too excited about your substrate. Hobbyist read manufacturers claims and magazine testimonials and get mentally programmed, assuming the...

Hello Simon, Glad you found the information valuable. The charts are actually very useful but they have been misinterpreted because, like a contract, folks often forget to read the fine print. The fine print states that the data on the chart is valid when the only source of...

Hello, As Andy mentions, the standard way to start is to use a dropchecker. A tutorial is available as a sticky at the top of this forum section=> CO2 Measurement Using A Drop Checker No one can actually know the CO2 level in the tank, however we can get a general sense of whether the...

I agree with Cortneybst that there might be a gas leak in the circuit. Soapy water sprayed on the connections as well as to the length of tubing and the unit itself will reveal leaks in the form of bubbles. Inline diffusers are generally more effective than the external variety, so it's worth...

All of this may be true concerning the biofilm covering the leaf and in fact this is something that folks should pay more attention to when performing a water change. The biofilm covering the leaf should be cleaned if possible as the leaf itself ejects waste products which sit on the leaf...

Hi Libba, As it turns out, in just about every sense of the term, plants cannot compete with algae, especially when it comes to nutrients. Yes, I know, a lot of experienced hobbyists say that plants compete with algae on almost every website, but it's not because they understand the...

Hi Mark, No I have not misunderstood this statement. Yes, I agree that glut kills some algae but no, killing algae does not result in any significant amount of additional available nutrition because the amount of nutrition that algae will have been using is miniscule in comparison...

Hello, Sorry, but this is not accurate. Although Excel and other glutaraldehyde products are toxic to some forms of algae many plants have a mechanism to internally degrade the glutaraldehyde into CO2 or into a CO2 precursor. The exact mechanism is known only to a few, who, by contract...

Hi Dave, The most important "parameter" is plant health, period. If the plants are doing fine then stop right there and leave well enough alone. Our advice is normally aimed at those who are struggling to get their plants healthy. There is no point in tinkering if you've achieved...

Actually, 3 hours to drop the pH 1 unit is too long, but it's a double edged sword if you have critters in the tank. Turning the gas on an hour earlier is the best compromise, I suppose. Again, this timeline may be exposing something less than perfect about your flow/distribution or diffusion...

Easternlethal, I really don't think your ire is warranted here. Your post was possibly misunderstood, perhaps, as you say, there was confusion regarding turning pumps off permanently vs temporarily. I for one, agree wholeheartedly with these sentences in your post: I cannot speak for...

Sorry Ivan, but as mentioned, this will never happen in real life. Water will never cooperate in the way you imagine. Spraybar on the back wall with holes pointing forward. This is THE starting point. Cheers,

I agree fully with aquascape1987's assessment. While it is possible, due to the layout of hardscape and plant mass, that pointing each bar at a different direction may work, typically we want as much water mass moving in the same direction. The momentum of the moving mass usually has a better...

Hello, I'm not really sure I've interpreted your question correctly but it sounds as if you're asking whether the amount of dissolved CO2 displaces the dissolved Oxygen. The answer is no. The other part of your question seems to be whether pearling is an indication of sufficient...

Hello, Its unclear whether you are using a pH controller or a simple uncontrolled injection, however we have to exercise caution when using CO2 regardless of whether rainwater or tap water is being used. CO2 dissolves in tap water just as easily as in rainwater so the injection rate...

Hello, I think you're getting wrapped around the axle a bit. The first step is to determine what the natural pH of the tank is. Instead of doing random checks, take a sample from the tank and just let it sit for an hour or so. You want to make sure there is no extra CO2 in the sample...

More CO2 needs more nutrients. This is moderated by the lighting levels. How much more is very difficult to say, because no one has data in their tanks regarding the CO2 concentration levels that the plants are actually seeing, however, if you are already dosing EI then you don't have to think...

Hi, Yes you are on the right path. The target pH is inexact because of the acids and bases in the tank water and because of their interaction with sediment and hardscape. If the "natural pH" of the tank is 6.6 then the target pH should be around 5.6. It's not really necessary to be exact...

Hi Karl, Yeah, it's like Ian mentions. It's not really practical to extrapolate data from one tank to another as there are so many different variables and also there are a lot of different objectives that each hobbyist will have. In any case, here are some typical data from the last...

Which is all very fine and well, except that the data shown on the graph provided by the OP clearly shows alkaline values. The point I'm making is that there is very little value in reading the pH of RO water. The data will be meaningless. The probes and reagents are always confused by this type...

Hi, RO water does not have a pH. pH is a ratio of acidic (H+) and basic (OH-) components of the water. If there aren't enough of these components in the water the the electrode simply reports spurious readings. RO water would have an equal balance of H+ and OH- so they cancel each other...

Hi Karl, There are a couple ways to skin the pH controller cat. You can also reduce the bubble rate so that it takes longer to reach the target pH so that the solenoid is almost always on. Combine this with a very tight Low/High range or simply set a very Low target pH so that the...

Just aim for a pH drop of anywhere from 0.5 to 1.0 depending on the amount of light intensity you have. Start the injection early enough so that the drop is achieved by the time the lights turn on. As mentioned by Ian and Darrel, use a dropchecker to give you a visual guide to the CO2 level...

Spraybars are among the best answers but they are not always used because they are ugly and are very difficult to implement correctly on a large scale. Reef tanks have little in common with planted tanks in this regard. Freshwater leaves require a certain flow rate and direction across the...

This is another mistaken strategy and is fundamental error is in the assumption that Oxygen in the water will necessarily be increased by extreme agitation. The truth is that aquatic plants eject Oxygen into the water column, so they actually saturate the water with Oxygen to a higher level...

If you have a sump it's more efficient to simply port the gas directly into the return chamber that has the pump. I'm not really familiar with the calcium reactor but doesn't it drip feed the calcium carbonate solution into the sump? Drip feeding into the sump will not be useful. I assume you...

Yes, many people have tried this and have been successful using this technique. When it works, it works better than most methods. Some pumps and filters cavitate. What you can try is to use the ceramic disk so that the bubbles entering the pump are finer. Also, because this is an efficient...

I say yes, jump, but be aware that, as the other posters have mentioned, you can have even more problems with a CO2 injected tank that you do with a low tech tank. As long as you are aware of that and have eyes wide open, then it is always worth a try. You are not married to CO2 and so if you...

Hi John, As I mentioned, there can be a reduction in throughput, but the benefits are worth it. Pinwheels, in general do not produce as good a throughput as the normal shaped impellers do, but keep in mind that one of the reasons we are attempting to follow the 10X rule is to...

Yes, a lot depends on the pump and impeller design as well as the amount of media in the filter. As I mentioned, using a pinwheel impeller (also referred to as a needle wheel impeller) chops up the bubbles finely and reduces the buildup. Here is a typical example of a pinwheel. Theses impellers...

It is more effective if you feed the output of the in-tank diffuser into the filter inlet. This will feed smaller bubbles into the filter and will reduce cavitation. Large bubbles straight from the line is more difficult for the impeller to swallow. Also, if you can find a pinwheel impeller...

Yes, but so what? Stable pH means nothing and will not result in either a healthier tank or healthier fish/shrimp. Use RO or 50/50 or whatever combination you like based on issues such as reducing TDS or for breeding or for reduction of contaminants and so forth. The worst reason for not using...

As I and others have mentioned repeatedly, you cannot use the chart to determine how much CO2 is in your water. The Chart represents a mathematical relationship between the pH, the Carbonate Hardness (amount of carbonate) and the CO2. Because this chart is basically an Excel spreadsheet of the...

No, this is all an illusion created by those wishing to sell light bulbs. These same folks will tell you to change you bulbs every "X" number of months. Light beyond the minimum amount acts as a metabolic accelerator. If you wish to increase the growth rate then certainly you can use more light...

Yes. Poor gas exchange is the cause of legginess more info in the post https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/old-skool-returnee-london-tap-water.24040/#post-246834 Correct! Cheers,

When heads get chopped off the remaining plant tries to extend the distance between nodes in order to to snorkel to the surface. The plant appears to us to have leggy growth and a common myth for many years has been that the cause id poor lighting, when in fact it due to poor CO2. That's a...

No, it would be better to reduce the light and to have excellent CO2/flow/distribution to improve the efficiency and survivability of the leaves. When you submerge new emmersed plants it is not a given that they will die. If they die then it is your fault and it is an alarm that you have a...

Yes, unfortunately, The Matrix programs us to think about brighter being better. It never informs us about the importance of gas exchange and the difficulty of sending gases to the plant while under water. The CO2 diffusion rate in water is about 10,000 times slower than it is in air. Bright...

Silicates have nothing to do with algae. Furthermore, the difference between the amount of CO2 being injected and the amount of CO2 in the newly added water is insignificant in this respect. Everyone thinks that their CO2 and flow/distribution is good, so they ignore this factor an look for a...

Yes. Exactly. No. The reason for the variance is because no two hobbyists or tanks are identical. Temperature is different, pressure is different, injection technique is different, flow/distribution is different, lighting is different, plant mass and plant species are different. Many people...

Hello, If you review many of the threads regarding this issue you will normally see that the advice is that it may not be necessary to drop the pH a full unit when the water's alkalinity is measure to be 12 dkH. Hobbyists who don't have the whole picture may sometimes conclude that...

Hi Angel, Well really, as foxfish mentions, 30ppm is an arbitrary number set as a safety limit for the fauna. Depending on temperature, pressure and surface agitation, it is possible to saturate the water to very high levels of CO2. Furthermore, no one actually knows how many ppm...

Hi, As mentioned by the other posters, these are the general principles regarding the relationship between light/CO2/nutrients and they cover the range of combinations from low to high. So for example a low tech non-carbon enriched tank can get away with minute amounts of nutrient dosing...

Hello, The amount of CO2 needed to be injected in order to reach a certain amount of dissolved CO2 is exactly the same whether using pure RO, a mix of RO/tap, or pure tap. CO2 does not care about the alkalinity of the water. Only three things determine the solubility or retention of CO2...

No. This is how beginners get ensnared in the spiders web and spend the rest of their lives running on the little hamster wheel that goes to nowhere. So that test kit doesn't even return a number, like 3 or 4 or 10? It just says low medium and high? I suppose it doesn't offer any explanation...

OK, but what does this mean according to your test kit instructions? If I had to guess, I'd say that the Alkalinity is around 2 or 2.5 but I shouldn't have to guess. If your Alkalinity is indeed somewhere around 2 then that would explain why the pH dropped from 7.6 to 6.0 in 2 hours as you...

Roediger, pH rate of change, as well as the amount of change is dependent on how much buffering is in the water you are testing. The amount of buffering is also referred to as the Alkalinity, sometimes erroneously called KH (carbonate hardness). If the Alkalinity is low, then the...

Yes, I'm very familiar with the CO2/pH/KH chart, and the calculations that derive the data in the chart only works when the only acid in the water is due to CO2, so this is fine in a dropchecker filled with distilled water, however, in your tank, there are other acids/base in the water which...

In addition to foxfish's advice, running airstones will remove CO2 from the water. This is also completely wrong. You cannot determine CO2 concentration level by a direct pH value. The pH in the tank is determined by other acids/bases in the water. The pH monitor cannot separate pH due to CO2...

OK, no probems. What I try to encourage folks to do is to make this pH profile part of their regular procedure. In fact this is one of the few methods we have of CO2 veriification. The DC is too slow to provide the right clue. When plants suffer a CO2 shortfall, i.e, melting or algae, then this...

Hi Richard, I wouldn't worry too much about the color of the DC. Pale green is fine and may be a transitional color to yellow. More important is the fact that you are getting a nearly 1 ph unit drop and the fact that the plants are responding positively. If that was newly...

Yeah, hairgrass will grow lots of roots because that's how it propagates, by sending roots all over the place and the sprouting up from wherever the roots travel to. That will take some time though, so just hold the bunch down with some other tool or with you free hand while you scrape the dirt...

Yeah, that's fine. If it's cheap then get it. I can't really tell what that is mate. That could be just debris caught by the hairgrass. Use an old toothbrush or maybe try to siphon it off and see if you can clean it. It looks white so I don't know if it is algae or just dirt. As long as you...

Hi Roediger, OK, well a filter with a 400LPH rating ought to be sufficient, so if the flow is poor, then before you commit to another filter, you may want to troubleshoot this filter. Have you disassembled the impeller housing to make sure there is no debris or damage to the...

Hi Roediger, Happy to hear the good results so far. Hope it continues. Yes, dim lights reduce the growth rates but so what? You don't have to deal with algae. That's a great tradeoff. As we mentioned before, we try to follow the 10X rule. I had a look at Big Al's and it lists...

Yes, our struggles really ought not to be about killing algae. I think this is where many folks fall off the wagon. When there is a problem in the tank, always consider ways of improving the health of plants first. Algae are not aliens from space who invade the tank. They are residents of the...

Hi Karl, Well, a fair enough point. The approach depends on how one view's the relationship between plants and algae. In my opinion the best way to interpret the relationship in our tanks, is that algae appear when plants suffer a nutritional deficiency. Algae, in our context are...

Yes, that's fine. Mount underneath the the spraybar at first and monitor for a few days to see how it works. Again, do the pH profile when you have the chance and compare with the original numbers. You can also try mounting it to the left of the spraybar, but as you have so many tubes and...

Hi Roediger, Generally, for CO2 injected tanks we suggest the 10X rule of thumb so that if you have a 29G tank the target filter should be rated on the box as 290 GPH or higher. This isn't a make-or-break rule, just a guideline. The best thing to do though, is to first try to...

Definitely at the beginning of the photoperiod. That angle of view in the video isn't really the best. Try dropping the water level 5 or 6 inches and take the picture/video from the side and front glass so we can see how the jets move across the tank. Cheers,

You can only post video links to Youtube, facebook and I believe Vimeo and a couple of other sites. Cheers,

Hi Bolota, Well, as we mentioned, the difference in performance between gas and liquid is huge, so that in order to achieve the equivalent performance for a specific CO2 concentration, one would require highly toxic concentration levels. But that is not the way we use the liquid...

Yes, the liquid is so much easier, but the cost can add up quickly. Remember it has to be added at least once daily. It also more than likely that you'll have to add multiple times the bottle recommendation. For a 20USG tank it's probably not as much of an economic burden as it would be for...

The reefers replace the stock impellers with Needle Wheel Impellers for use in their skimmers. These do a much better job of chopping up the bubbles and avoiding the burping/misting. There are lots of different designs, but of course the problem is finding one that's compatible with your...

Hi, The number of liters does not really matter if you are dosing the liquid according to the bottle suggested amounts. At the end of the day, Excel and other Gluteraldehyde products does not have anywhere near the effectiveness of gas. Unfortunately, no one knows what the actual numbers in...