Quick question around co2

[Andy Pierce]

If you really have KH 7 (and that's a big if) and you drop the pH to 6.4 you're looking at >140 ppm CO2 which your plants will enjoy but which would probably kill a lot of the animals. The way to do this is to install a drop checker with well-defined 4 dKH solution and look at the colour. If it's not green/yellow enough for you then cautiously bump up the injected CO2 levels. Keep a close eye on your livestock during the process. Be patient - if it takes you a couple weeks to figure out what's right for your setup, that's just fine. There's no need to charge ahead looking for a mythic 1.0 pH drop - the drop checker will tell you where you are.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

The way to do this is to install a drop checker with well-defined 4 dKH solution and look at the colour.

As longer term members will know <"I'm not"> (nor are ever likely to be) <"a CO2 user">, but hypothetically if I was? I'd be much keener on a drop checker, rather than pH measurement.

The main reason is that drop checkers don't have <"any moving parts">, which is a <"big plus for me">.

cheers Darrel

 

[_Maq_]

140 ppm CO2 which your plants will enjoy

They won't. According to some studies, above 40 mg/L adverse effects prevail over positive.

 

[Mat H]

I would have to agree with @dw1305 and @Andy Pierce - though perhaps not the plants doing well at 140ppm C02 bit 😂 .

My recent, perhaps rather amateurish, approach to high tech has been solely the use of drop checkers placed at different levels and moved occasionally to check distribution in combination with constant visual inspection of livestock whenever adjusting the CO2, and especially shrimp given they'll generally succumb first to excessive CO2 - though they recover rather miraculously if it's corrected or they're moved to more oxygen rich waters [don't assume they're dead, though of course try not to be in that position in the first place].

Rightly or wrongly I have much more faith in these things and what I can observe than the results of a test kit, even if these are some of the more accurate results they can provide.

The quality of the 4dKH solution used is important of course hence the visual inspection of livestock. Additionally very small changes at a time as it can take a couple of days to stabilise due to day night cycles in the tank.