Removal of co2 system

[Little]

I’m shutting down a tank and will be moving the plants to a new tank in two weeks.
The current tank is high energy / tech.
The new tank will be low energy / tech.
I have just removed the co2 system as the cylinder was running out and it is not worth a top up.
I have dropped the lights by 30%. Do you think it’s enough? I’m not sure if I should dial back the ferts too.

I’m a bit concerned about Bucephalandra melt and algae issues.

Anyone removed co2 and can share experiences with the process?

 

[X3NiTH]

Reducing the light intensity would be the only thing I would do at the moment, I would hold back on reducing the fertiliser until you know the plants are coping without the co2 and you have the light intensity low enough that they are still growing, the Buce will grow in the near darkness so they are not your metric to determine this. After a couple of weeks if all looks okay then you could reduce the fertiliser a little but I would keep good observation on how the epiphytic plants react to this.

 

[MichaelJ]

Cold turkey - or in this case a rapid change is always troublesome. Best approach would have been to gradually let the tank of the gas. But since you pulled the plug already I would go with what @X3NiTH says above. My guess, is that algae will become an issue if the plants starts to struggle and deteriorate - which is likely unfortunately, as you induced a big change to their living conditions.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Little]

Little update on the removal of co2.
Some leaves in the highest flow are getting BBA, one of the Buce started to flower and a minor amount of green spot algae appeared on the glass.

Probably should have just got another refill and dialled it down slowly. It won’t be long till the new tank is ready so I think it will be fine.

I have reduced the ferts 20% and the lights another 10%.

Im temped to snip off the leaves that have started getting BBA but will probably leave them for now and remove when replanting to the new tank instead.

I have been running the new filter pump and foams in a large container with the new hardscape and excess floating plants for a month now and the rocks are feeling a little slippery so should have good biofilm to help get the new tank running.

Will start a journal once all set up and planted etc… and can share the full experience of high tech to low tech switching.