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End of CO2 Bottle Toxicity?

sonicninja

sonicninja

Member
Joined
15 Dec 2013
Messages
307
Hi Everyone,
I went away for the weekend and came home to a sudden and fairly aggressive issue of plant melt this week. All my usual regimes are the same and the plants have been growing well for a while now too. Nothing has changed on the tank for a while. Water changing, fert dose regime etc have all stayed the same.

I did notice that before going away however that my FE 2KG bottle was nearly out and is now completely empty. I have a dual stage gauge/reg and so haven't had end of tank dump but it got me wondering about what could be lurking at the 'bottom' of a FE bottle. Is there anything that could have possibly leached into the tank and caused this melt. I had a very slight case of Stauro leaves dropping in the week leading up to the completely empty bottle which perhaps was the first sign of an issue. Any ideas if I could be on the right track? Its the only variable thats changed on this tank for a couple of months.


Thanks everyone

Keith
 
While there are several grades of "purity" available for most gases, I'd suspect changing CO2 levels rather than the (likely) low levels of impurities - contact your gas supplier for a printout on contaminants in the CO2 being used.
 
I thought that but my BPS rate seems to have stayed relatively stable until the CO2 ran out.


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Is it definitely dual stage? Sounds like all the symptoms of a single stage reg dumping.
 
Can end of tank dump end in plant melt then?
Yes, it's a dual stage one from CO2 Art.


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high light setup?

I'm with alto on this. EOTD is more of a fish-killer than plant-killer I would have thought....

edit: and big clown!
 
No, not particularly high. The tank hasn't actually been without CO2.
The bottle was running low on thurs/Friday (gauge pressure was reducing), I went away fri evening and returned on Monday evening to melty sadness. It was only today (Tuesday) that the bottle actually ran out.


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Melting is always a lack of CO2 issue. I bet your dual stage reg gives a decreasing bubble rate as tank empties thus causing CO2 issues. Having dual stage does not guarantee constant bps as tank pressure falls.

I always change my FE as soon as I notice bottle pressure falling as or I get falling bps and associated CO2 issues or just readjust bps every day as pressure drips.
 
Thanks everyone. Like I mentioned I haven't noticed a BPS rate change but I suppose I'll see how things go this week. It seems odd that some.
I've just realized that I completely forgot to mention a pretty important bit of info (so stupid).
On returning two fish had also died, this was one of the main bits of info that made me wonder about toxicity. My bps was stable (between 3-4bps) until it completely ran out. I'm fairly certain that I didn't have a drop in CO2.


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sonicninja said:
Thanks everyone. Like I mentioned I haven't noticed a BPS rate change but I suppose I'll see how things go this week. It seems odd that some.
I've just realized that I completely forgot to mention a pretty important bit of info (so stupid).
On returning two fish had also died, this was one of the main bits of info that made me wonder about toxicity. My bps was stable (between 3-4bps) until it completely ran out. I'm fairly certain that I didn't have a drop in CO2.


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Click to expand...

I was wondering if there had been any fish effects ... definitely look into the sort of CO2 that you're using, it's certainly possible for CO2 gases (& other gases) to contain toxic contaminants ... hospitals don't use pharmaceutical grade gases just to spend extra $$$

Also consider the possibility of a power outage or temperature swings or it just being all coincidental ... sorry for your losses.

Was anyone checking the tank daily? auto-feeder? lighting/CO2 control? autodoser?
 
Co2 and lights are both on a controller. No power outage as far as I'm aware, my fert dosers won't have kept their settings if there had been but they seem fine. Temp looks good too.
I've now replaced the empty bottle, hopefully this week I'll see some improvements. Odd.


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