20-04-2003, 06:13 AM
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CO2 vs algae
In article ,
) wrote:
Tom,
Sorry to bud in on this thread but you have me thinking about something.
I thought I smelled smoke:-)
No wait! That's my dinner!
I have a DIY CO2 setup on my heavily planted 58 gallon tank and I run an
airstone on a timer opposite my lights for aeration help. Is this
helpful on a DIY CO2 setup on a tank as large as mine? Will my fish
suffer if I scrap the 'aeration help after dark' idea? Thanks for any
advice,
Scott
Folks need to rely on air stones at night etc only if their fish loads
are 1#, too high, #2, poor plant growth and O2 production from the
plants(a good reason to grow them well!!), #3 not enough currect to
mix the water, #4 too much organic waste(over feed too much, just
pulled up a bunch of dirt and mulm from the gravel and did not do a
water cahnge to remove all etc.
It's O2 that's the issue. You can increase the surface movements to
the point where the water takes in enough O2 but the tank can still
have enough CO2 during the lighting cycle. So you can increase O2
levels by adding some more CO2 to account for the surface losses. But
the gain in O2 maybe worth it if the plants are not growing or one of
the above 4 items(or possibly more) is present.
Healthy plants= healthy fish. Grow the plants and it should not be
difficult.
I have never found a need for adding air stones at night. I've done
it... but never needed to.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Thanks for the help Tom,
I left the air pump off last night just to observe the fish. They didn't
look any different early in the morning than they did in the middle of
the day when the plants are at 'full pearl'. Happy as ever without the
pump and without any gasping at the top. My plants look pretty healthy,
I don't feed heavily and my fish load is low/medium so I guess I don't
need the pump. It was one of those things I read about earlier that I
thought would be a good precaution to have. Looks like I'll stuff it in
the back of the tank stand with all the other stuff I bought, thought
I'd need and never used. Thanks again and I hope dinner was good. :^)
Scott
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