I have a 30g cichlid tank with a 55w CF retrofit from ahsupply
(~2wpg). Currently I'm not dosing CO2, but using Flourish Excell
instead, plus PMDD ingredients (K, traces, and sometimes P). The
plants are mostly slow growers, but all doing really well. I have
2 types of annubias (one flowering!), java fern, bolbitis, water
sprite, rubin sword, and corkscrew val (this one is not doing so
well... growing extremely slow and compact).

Sorry, I don't have any pictures now, but soon I hope. Check out
http://home.intranet.org/~eric/gallery in a few weeks.

I have considered injecting CO2, but since I'm keeping Tanginyikans
(cyprochromis) and I prefer not to dose baking soda to keep the pH
up (they prefer ph in the 9 range... IIRC baking soda will only
get you to around 8.3), so I'm just using crushed coral in the
media chambers of my filter and mixed with my gravel.

But if you're not keeping tangs and can keep a really high KH I
see not reason you couldin't inject CO2. Cichlids are really
hearty, but I'd consider adding an air bubbler during the lights
out period, just to make sure that you don't get into a low oxygen
situation.

Let us know how it goes!

-Eric


In article , Jim Wunderlich wrote:
I have a 40 gallon tank running 1 watt per gallon and some low light
plants. i'd like to see more growth with my anubias nana's & barteri's
and java ferns. i'm thinking of doing a DIY 1 liter bottle to add a
little CO2, and connecting it to the air inlet on my powerhead.

anyone do this or have links/suggestions of a similar setup? should i
worry about it affecting the harder water conditions? thanks!