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Liquid Carbon Overdose Signs?

Jimbo1981

Jimbo1981

Seedling
Joined
21 Mar 2017
Messages
24
Location
London
Hi

I'm pretty new to the aquascape scene and just wondering if anyone has any advice on how to know whether or not i'm overdosing the tank using Liquid Carbon. The CO2 Gas type looked a bit "Pro" for my needs, but after much reading i may end up going down that route anyway.

For now, i have been using Flourish Excel, which is supposed to be really good stuff and has seemed to work. I have been using it for about a year in my old 65L tank, but all i grew was Java Moss, Christmas Moss and some hair grass.

My new tank is a 140L and had minimal plants to start with and i followed the directions on the bottle. However, it doesn't state anything about the quantity of plants in the tank. Therefore, i have concerns of overdosing the tank; if there are only a few plants should i still dose the same? Does it evaporate, etc? Or if there were no plants, would it continue to build to toxic levels?

The tank has quite a few plants in it now and i paused dosing just encase. However, it would be nice to know if there was a way to check carbon levels? As far as i am aware a drop checker will not work as Carbon is different from CO2.

Thanks

James
 
You have to massively overdose liquid carbon before you can get issues.

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/pump-timer-issue-and-liquid-carbon-overdose.36942/

However following on from above.
- Some fish did die.
- Some plants (the big green leafed plant mentioned in the above link) just melted away.
- No algae what so ever was seen for a couple of months 😎

Anyway if you overdose slightly, as you are worried above, it is not an issue as most liquid carbons break down within 24hours due to reactions and being degraded by light.
 
Zeus. said:
So dosing LCO2 after the photo period makes sense so it has a longer active period before the light breaks it down
Click to expand...

I see most CO2 advice saying to start about one hour before lights go on, would this be the same for Liquid Carbon?
 
Jimbo1981 said:
I see most CO2 advice saying to start about one hour before lights go on, would this be the same for Liquid Carbon?
Click to expand...
Actually normally 2 hours. This is to give time for the CO2 levels in the water to rise to the optimal 30ppm, by the time the lights come on.

Gaseous CO2 and liquid carbon are completely different things, hopefully trying to achieve a carbon supply to the plants.

I would just dose in the morning, when dosing ferts if that is convenient for you.

If dosing using a pump and timer or PLC then might as well dose sometime before lights come on.
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/how-to-use-a-plc-to-control-your-fish-tank.42993/

I have a 1.8ml per minute dosing pump to dose my tank.
 
Thanks Ian, and for the PLC info... That is super cool and gone straight on the "to do" list!

Just a quick one regarding fertalisers, in my old tank i just berried some of those capsules in the substrate and relied on the Seachem substrate. I'm not using anything other than the Seachem substrate in the new larger tank. What liquid ones would you recommend? Would the standard Flourish Trace Elements be enough?
 
Jimbo1981 said:
I see most CO2 advice saying to start about one hour before lights go on, would this be the same for Liquid Carbon?
Click to expand...

Yes, read the same myself. But after Ian post
ian_m said:
degraded by ligh
Click to expand...

It made me think (I had read it before about LCO2 being broken down by light, but the penny didnt drop) so have changed mine to dose at Midnight then should have a longer active period as has longer without light. makes sense to me
 
I have always mixed my own Glute and never has any problems with it regarding plant species that are supposed to react badly to it but a couple of months ago I bought some Excel Flourish and it totally destroyed my crypt balansae. Stopped using it for a month and they all recovered nicely. Tried using excel just for some spot dosing on WC change day and again the balansae leaves dissolved about half way up the leaf until the end broke off. Don't know how different they are chemically but there's definitely something in the excel that the plants didn't like and that was at normal dose as a supplement to my co2.
Maybe going to look at how to spot dose with hydrogen peroxide as an alternative.
 
Zeus. said:
LCO2 for its anti aglea properties mainly
Click to expand...

interesting as I'm doing the same to try and combat BBA on christmas moss, i have no other algea issues. What ml/l level are you dosing, I'm on 15ml in a 180l tank which seems to have no effect. Along with high CO2, drop checker is constantly light green to yellow.
 
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