uwish Posted July 2, 2008 Report Share Posted July 2, 2008 Greetings, Been using a bubble ladder for the past year with no real great effects other than it prevents my plants from rotting. Just enough to keep them green really. So, I switched to a power head style diffuser using the same DIY CO2 generator and my plants are suffering. I am having trouble figuring this out: Under my 'old' ladder system the bubbles would decrease in size to about 50% from when they entered the ladder to when they worked there way to the top and surface. Now, I would say a 90% reduction in the size of the bubbles since moving to the power head style diffuser. Then why are my plants doing worse? I do not have anything special in the substrate besides gravel, I realize this isn't the best when attempting to keep plants however, I fail to understand why there appears to be less CO2 in the tank now than before? thoughts would be appreciated? Tank size 100Gal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corrosionjerry Posted July 2, 2008 Report Share Posted July 2, 2008 Greetings,Been using a bubble ladder for the past year with no real great effects other than it prevents my plants from rotting. Just enough to keep them green really. So, I switched to a power head style diffuser using the same DIY CO2 generator and my plants are suffering. I am having trouble figuring this out: Under my 'old' ladder system the bubbles would decrease in size to about 50% from when they entered the ladder to when they worked there way to the top and surface. Now, I would say a 90% reduction in the size of the bubbles since moving to the power head style diffuser. Then why are my plants doing worse? I do not have anything special in the substrate besides gravel, I realize this isn't the best when attempting to keep plants however, I fail to understand why there appears to be less CO2 in the tank now than before? thoughts would be appreciated? Tank size 100Gal How old are your lights? have you changed your filtration in anyway... canister to HOB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
24/7 Posted July 2, 2008 Report Share Posted July 2, 2008 There is to much diffusion of CO2 with your DIY CO2 system when you switched over to the power head And DIY system with the ladder are more suited for smaller tank sizes in the 20/30 gal range max, hope this helps, I see a pressured tank set up in your future 24/7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uwish Posted July 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2008 Greetings,Been using a bubble ladder for the past year with no real great effects other than it prevents my plants from rotting. Just enough to keep them green really. So, I switched to a power head style diffuser using the same DIY CO2 generator and my plants are suffering. I am having trouble figuring this out: Under my 'old' ladder system the bubbles would decrease in size to about 50% from when they entered the ladder to when they worked there way to the top and surface. Now, I would say a 90% reduction in the size of the bubbles since moving to the power head style diffuser. Then why are my plants doing worse? I do not have anything special in the substrate besides gravel, I realize this isn't the best when attempting to keep plants however, I fail to understand why there appears to be less CO2 in the tank now than before? thoughts would be appreciated? Tank size 100Gal How old are your lights? have you changed your filtration in anyway... canister to HOB Lights are less than one year old and no, no change in filter set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
werner Posted July 2, 2008 Report Share Posted July 2, 2008 (edited) DIY CO2 is really only useful for tanks under 50 gal, simply because of the slow rate of production and number of mixture bottles required for larger volumes of water. Depending on your tank conditions and yeast mixture, a 2L bottle will supply approximately 15ppm of CO2 to 25-30 gal of water. Since most people aim for about 30ppm, you'd be looking at 7+ bottles for a 100gal tank to get a good CO2 level for the plants. How many and what size of bottles do you use? I'm guessing it wasn't anywhere near 7, since you'd have cursed the mess and hassle and either given up plants entirely or gone out and got a pressurized system long ago. So if you were only using a bottle or two, I'd say that there wasn't anywhere near enough CO2 production to be effective in a large tank like that. You would have seen more results than just 'preventing the plants from rotting'. Neither the ladder or reactor system would have make much of a difference and the plants have declined recently for another reason (like heat?) Edited July 2, 2008 by werner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted July 2, 2008 Report Share Posted July 2, 2008 What are you adding for ferts? Plants need more than light and CO2 to grow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uwish Posted July 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2008 What are you adding for ferts? Plants need more than light and CO2 to grow. Some standard NPK stuff. Nothing "special" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbot Posted July 3, 2008 Report Share Posted July 3, 2008 DIY CO2 is really only useful for tanks under 50 gal, simply because of the slow rate of production and number of mixture bottles required for larger volumes of water. Depending on your tank conditions and yeast mixture, a 2L bottle will supply approximately 15ppm of CO2 to 25-30 gal of water. Since most people aim for about 30ppm, you'd be looking at 7+ bottles for a 100gal tank to get a good CO2 level for the plants. How many and what size of bottles do you use? I'm guessing it wasn't anywhere near 7, since you'd have cursed the mess and hassle and either given up plants entirely or gone out and got a pressurized system long ago. So if you were only using a bottle or two, I'd say that there wasn't anywhere near enough CO2 production to be effective in a large tank like that. You would have seen more results than just 'preventing the plants from rotting'. Neither the ladder or reactor system would have make much of a difference and the plants have declined recently for another reason (like heat?) Bingo! In a tank of that size, having a DIY CO2 system is pointless. Get yourself a nice pressurized setup (see http://www.bestaquariumregulator.com/CO2.html#bc) and an external reactor/diffuser for use with a canister filter - using HOB filters on a CO2 tank will allow most of the precious CO2 to off-gas.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moutain Dew Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 do you put the output of the canister filters under the water line? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uwish Posted July 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2008 do you put the output of the canister filters under the water line? nope, but now I just got a pressurized tank setup. Next question, where is a spot in the NW to get some CO2 for my 10Lbs tank? cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
werner Posted July 29, 2008 Report Share Posted July 29, 2008 I get mine refilled at Sprouse Fire and Safety: 1323 - 9 Avenue SE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uwish Posted July 29, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 29, 2008 (edited) I get mine refilled at Sprouse Fire and Safety: 1323 - 9 Avenue SE good to know because airgas and praxair don't refill bottles Oxypro in Calgary will exchange your bottle with a full one as long as the bottle has all the date and test stamps they are at 3664 61st Ave SE 403.279.5055 just found them doing a search for refills in Calgary. Edited July 29, 2008 by uwish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
werner Posted July 29, 2008 Report Share Posted July 29, 2008 airgas and praxair don't refill bottles Air Liquide and Praxair can refill them at their Foothills Industrial Park locations. It's just such a PITA to get over there from the NW. I used to get my 5lb cylinder refilled over there until I needed it hydro-tested. Had to take it to Sprouse for that and when they refilled it, it was cheaper too. They also found me a used cylinder when I needed a spare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uwish Posted August 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2008 airgas and praxair don't refill bottles Air Liquide and Praxair can refill them at their Foothills Industrial Park locations. It's just such a PITA to get over there from the NW. I used to get my 5lb cylinder refilled over there until I needed it hydro-tested. Had to take it to Sprouse for that and when they refilled it, it was cheaper too. They also found me a used cylinder when I needed a spare. Agreed. I just picked up my tank yesterday from Sprouse Fire and Safety. How do you monitor CO2? or do you 'imply' levels by monitoring PH? Just curious as all the documentation I have read is saying 30 -50 ppm of CO2 concentrations are ideal but no one says anything about HOW to test levels... S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbot Posted August 15, 2008 Report Share Posted August 15, 2008 Just curious as all the documentation I have read is saying 30 -50 ppm of CO2 concentrations are ideal but no one says anything about HOW to test levels... http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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