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Any advice welcome

Do you mean drop? Most people experience a drop in KH but a rise in GH.
 
REDSTEVEO said:
Does this now mean that I can adjust the PH setting on my PH sensor to say 6.30 and get more CO2 into the water without doing any damage? I only ask this because the setting of 6.50 does not seem to have much affect on the colour of the drop checker, lately it is still dark green most of the time and I know you are a big fan of bright yellow before lights on and darker green by the end of the day.
Click to expand...
Well depending on your lighting you may not need to be as extreme as to be in the yellow zone, but yes, if you are using a pH controller (which is not a good idea generally) then setting a lower pH target value will achieve a higher dissolved CO2 concentration. As I mentioned, setting too low a pH value carries the risk of overdosing CO2 and that will cause damage, not the pH.

It just depends on what the alkalinity of the tank water is. That is why the controller has no idea about how much CO2 is in the water. It only measures the pH without an alkalinity context. If your water has a high alkalinity then it buffers the carbonic acid and the meter sees only a small pH change, so it's possible to kill the fish because a lot of CO2 is in the water with only a small change in pH. If the tank water has a low alkalinity then small amounts of CO2 cause large drops in pH and the plants suffer poor CO2. That's why we suggest that you turn off the controlling function of the controller and to simply use it to monitor the pH.

Controllers also do not care about the rate at which the gas is injected and so the rate varies during the day. This can contribute to CO2 instability which can in turn, result in BBA blooms.

Cheers,
 
Hi Daza,i intend to buy ADA as like yourself i dont think going the cheeper route will help me in the long run,its now a matter of working out how much i will need to buy as the tank is 5 1/2 foot long x 18" wide x 30 "high i then intend on useing black quartz gravel ontop of that so i know its going to set me back a bit as far as substrates are concerned & as its been stated if youre going to do a job doit right.The tank has a good hight of 30" so i will be looking at useing plants that will reach the surfice as well as the useual amazon swords & java ferns but i would also like to use something that will give me a good carpet effect but being new to planted tanks i will have to take a lot of advice from those that know & do a lot of reading to find what will suit the tank best.I'm still looking into what Co2 set up will be best for me,the lighting i have is an iquatics luminair that has 6 80w tubes but i,m able to switch between 3 & 6 as it has 2 plugs so i hope this will help asfar as increaseing the light asit is needed i also have an LED setup that i was thinking of useing,my filter is an FX5 but i find this very noisey so am looking at changeing it for an ehiem pro 3e, plus as i have an ehiem 2217 i was going to use that aswell.

Paul
 
ceg4048 said:
REDSTEVEO said:
Does this now mean that I can adjust the PH setting on my PH sensor to say 6.30 and get more CO2 into the water without doing any damage? I only ask this because the setting of 6.50 does not seem to have much affect on the colour of the drop checker, lately it is still dark green most of the time and I know you are a big fan of bright yellow before lights on and darker green by the end of the day.
Click to expand...
Well depending on your lighting you may not need to be as extreme as to be in the yellow zone, but yes, if you are using a pH controller (which is not a good idea generally) then setting a lower pH target value will achieve a higher dissolved CO2 concentration. As I mentioned, setting too low a pH value carries the risk of overdosing CO2 and that will cause damage, not the pH.

It just depends on what the alkalinity of the tank water is. That is why the controller has no idea about how much CO2 is in the water. It only measures the pH without an alkalinity context. If your water has a high alkalinity then it buffers the carbonic acid and the meter sees only a small pH change, so it's possible to kill the fish because a lot of CO2 is in the water with only a small change in pH. If the tank water has a low alkalinity then small amounts of CO2 cause large drops in pH and the plants suffer poor CO2. That's why we suggest that you turn off the controlling function of the controller and to simply use it to monitor the pH.

Controllers also do not care about the rate at which the gas is injected and so the rate varies during the day. This can contribute to CO2 instability which can in turn, result in BBA blooms.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

Thanks Clive, that explains a lot. I will leave it there for now and let uk bulldog crack on with his thread.

Good luck uk bulldog, I am interested to to see how you get on. Start saving up your pennies for the ADA kit by the sounds of it. Did you check out the links I posted before?

Cheers,

Steve
 
Hi Steve yes thanks the link on substrates makes intresing reading although im still trying to digest it all.The ADA sure isnt cheap at £35 for 9ltr & i think im looking at a good 4 or 5 bags if i have worked it out correctly but knowing me i havent

Paul
 
Hi steve thanks again for the link but after a long & helpfull chat with the guys at the green machine i bit the bullet & have just orderd 6 bags of ADA amazonia,an Ehiem pro 3 e 1200xlt a TGM Co2 kit & an Aqua medic 1000 reactor all of which should be with me on thursday.So now the bit that really hurt has been done (& believe me it did hurt but i wont tell the mrs as that would hurt even more 😀 ) i can get down to looking at what plants i want.

Paul
 
Hi uk bulldog and ok as i was going to say u may not need CO2 as i do not use it and mine is fine if u was to have plants reaching the surface then thaey would gain alot of CO2 anyways in which they release some into the water, i have started to do a riccia carpet with no CO2 nothing i have no ferts nothing at all and it is amazing i will upload a picture in which i took a little while back of it ill try and grab a camera to take a new one for you it looks amazing !!

Darren
 
Wow that all sounds great daza but i have taken the plunge now & gone for it but it would be good to see your pics.

Paul
 
I would say the best thing is to shop around and see what else you can get from elsewhere, buying products because they're from a nice shop doesn't always get you the best products. Read around decide what's best because it's right for the job you have and work from there.

Why may I ask are you capping the ADA, it's strength comes from the fact it is an all in one requiring no capping, if you were to cap it you may as well use tropica's base layer.

I have to say it's a touch misleading to suggest riccia doesn't need co2, it doesn't need co2 if it's in a very narrow band of par and in very specific situation where atmospheric co2 is just able to match the overall biomass requirement of the riccia. It all depends on the light, flow, depth of the tank and the overall biomass of the tank.
 
From the pictures it's also clear that you have a very low biomass which means the atmospheric co2 is nearer to the percentage needed for it to grow. Ultimately plants grow because they can not because the conditions are perfect. I was simply pointing out that it's very hard and sometimes unwise to make sweeping remarks in this hobby when the dynamics of every single tank is different and you could easily find at some point that you do need ferts or co2 or any other thing. I would also perhaps cheekily suggest that if riccia was really growing well it'd be pearling like a mother, especially given your light load, in the past it was used as a identifier species, when it started to pearl people knew they were adding enough co2/ferts.

Another thing is to assume flow is good, you're a brave man, it's only good till you have problems in my experience, then you discover it wasn't as good as you thought. 🙂
 
ha fair enough and it is pearling they are old pics i have taken a newer one today and i was just saying information on which i found worked for me as you will see i am new to this whole thing to as of my fish status thing and was trying to help with what i have found seemed to work

8203240917_2ae0746ce9.jpg
#Riccia Pearling by Darren Williams., on Flickr
 
Oh no, don't take it the wrong way, I'm not berating you at all, I was pointing out that some things appear to go against logic or the general accepted but in reality they work in just the same way and work for very specific reasons that might not be applicable to someone else, imagine it a bit like saying "well, I'm a size 8 and that fits me so a size 8 must fit everyone". Plants needs and demands are always the same it's how you provide them that varies and every tank dynamic will having the same but varying needs which must be met.
 
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