Hi
@jaypeecee, I will provide all the details!
[1] What is the volume of your tank?
10 gallon aquarium
[2] What are you using to inject CO2 into the water?
Co2 regulator connected to a ceramic diffuser (in the tank)
[3] Do you have a lot of surface agitation of the tank water?
Hang on back filters and water is usually topped up so it’s pushing the water around instead of a large break.
[4] What are you using to distribute the CO2 in the water?
The diffuser is set up directly under the HOB filter. The bubbles swoop underneath the log I have and towards the front of the aquarium, then get caught in the current and either move up to the surface or distribute to the back. Not much gets to the left of my aquarium because of all of my hardscape (unless it swoops behind the log which some does); however, I have still seen some pearling on the anubias and java fern on that side. That side also has emergent growth (several pothos plants hanging over and an unknown trimming from my work that seems to be growing ... haha).
[5] Does your tank lighting ramp up or is it OFF/ON?
Photoperiod starts at 2:30 WITH a 15 minute ramp up; so, the full lighting power starts officially at 2:45. It begins the Ramp down at 9:30 and is off at 9:45.
[6] What is the position of the DC relative to the CO2 injector (assuming it's an in-tank injector/diffuser).
The DC is positioned at the back of the aquarium near the rotala rotundifolia --> I placed it here because the bubbles would need to circulate to make it there (for 1) and because I know that the concentration may vary on the left and I was less concerned with that side (
would it really vary that much in a 10G?).
[7] Have you done a pH profile, i.e. measured the water pH at regular intervals throughout the day? I know you've had some problems with your pH meter but, as I suggested, you could resort to narrow-range pH test kits.
Yes I have and more so before I got the drop checker.
I watched the pH change as CO2 was injected and it went from 7.8 to the 6.6/6.7 mark that I wanted - and stayed there.
Here has been my co2 journey:
1) Blew the right gauge on regulator by accident. BPS was reducing throughout the day so I slowly upped working pressure until it stabilized. Got it.
2) Through this process cross-referenced KH and PH in aquarium (I always kept some almond leaf, peat, and crushed coral in the back).
3) My KH kept bottoming out regardless of my efforts to increase it -- realized my little bag of goodies was eating my buffer -- removed it.
4) Buffered my WC water up to the right KH ~4 ~~~~ I chose this so that my low pH was around 6.6 (good enough for my tetras, gobys, and because I wanted to keep some amano shrimp too).
4.1) Still reading about how pH changes with gases affect osmotic pressure etc BUT a lower concentration of H+ should affect something, even if its bacteria -- still reading (especially a lot of the links that
@dw1305 has shared regarding the chemistry).
5) While doing all of this, we had a baby!! (woot woot!), and I got the TDS meter (the birth of this post) ... it was reading 1800 ms ... needless to say that was because I didn't make water changes or do anything for a while due to lack of sleep ... LOL
6) Upped CO2, then fish were gasping slightly (note my other post in this thread).
7) Reduced CO2 to a much nicer level, everyone happy.
8) Before I realized how bad that TDS was, I added 6 amano's and killed them because I forgot how to acclimate fish ...
9) Ok, stabilized the KH to 4 and decided my GH should be around 7/8 (no idea why ... then the perfect water post came up) ... decided to go with EI Ca recommendations. GH = 60 ppm, KH = 4dKH ~ 70 ppm --> 600 ms TDS ... that's the water.
10) Tank water is around the same with about 800 ms TDS now (over the next bit, it will go to 600ms about as low as I can get it).
11) Acclimated my amano's and neons yesterday with success (I could have waited another few weeks before I added these livestock but I went for it)!
Livestock: 11 neons, 2 rainbow goby and some shrimp. They all have territory and my parameters are very stable, even with me playing mad scientist --> everything is healthy and changes in predictable patterns.
12) Among all of these changes I noticed the green hair algae form in the java mass (it could be plants acclimating to CO2, it could be detritus build up from poor maintenance that triggered the population, it could be fluctuating CO2 levels. Now I have to eradicate the population.)
12.1) yesterday/day before is when I noticed a baby staghorn and then another one forming.
My intuition says the tank needs time to stabilize now with all of the new additions and with the consistent CO2 level (and that would be fine if I didn't notice the algae progressing) and with the appropriate water change and appropriate maintenance (I did a much needed clean of the filters yesterday too). With the addition of the new fish, upping CO2 may not be the best choice, but reducing the light seems like a solid idea, but I definitely seek advice.
If anyone sees any mistakes that I made in my process, please advise so I don't make them again!
Regards,
Josh