Drop checkers for measuring co2

[Vallisneria]

I've been reading up on planted tanks this week and I've seen "drop checkers" mentioned a lot for measuring Co2 amounts. Does anyone use one? It looks a lot easier then having to measure the ph/kh and look on tha tlittle chart for your co2 amount.

Just wondering if anyone uses one. They are pretty cheap on ebay so I'd like to know if it would be worth testing out.

[Frank]

:thumbs: There is also a Oxygen Marine and Freshwater test lab kit you can buy.

Cost is $21.00. I ordered one from the lfs store here in rocky, so you should be able to get them in the city. All my fish in my 120 gal were gasping all the time so I ordered it to check the oxygen, but by the time it came I had the problem fix. So I have not used it yet, but will try it out here one night.

Fixed the problem by running a power head at night and then moved my spray bar up to the top of the tank. End of problem and no more power head.

[Vallisneria]

But that would measure oxygen and not Co2. I want to know my co2 concentration and would like a method better then the Co2 chart(ph/kh method)

[werner]

Here's the goods on CO2 Drop Checkers. It's a pretty long thread, but he explains it well.

Have never tried one myself. Once you get the hang of the CO2 thing, you can tell by the plant growth if they're getting enough.

[tedfroop]

And you can go here:

http://www.epcor.ca/pages/water/WaterQuali...ly/wqdaily.html

(The bottom of the page explains where they like to keep the parameters for the water.)

Add a hang on ph meter (Seachem or Mardel) and you should be able to figure out where your CO2 content is fairly quickly.

[Vallisneria]

Does the KH come down when you add co2 or does it stay the same and its only the ph that changes? Just wondering if I need to continue to test the kh each time I test the ph.

So far I've only been adding about 1bubble/second and I measured my ph at 7.6+(usually its at 7.8 but my new kit only goes up to 7.6) and kh at 8. So basically its the same as before the co2. I'll be testing out increasing the bubbles this week.

Thanks guys for the help

[werner]

This explains the pH/KH/CO2 relationship better than I can: Measuring CO2 levels in a Planted Tank

The KH in the tank should remain fairly constant over time, unless you're doing crazy stuff like water changes with RO/distilled water, dropping boxes of baking soda in the tank, using seashells/coral, etc. You may see a slight seasonal variation in your tap water.