Other things in DIY CO2?

[Tanker]

Are there any other chemicals or bi-products created in a DIY mix? I used 1 cup of sugar, 2 cups of water and 1/4 tsp of yeast. The yeast is from the Nutrafin kit, same as the last two months. I set up a second bottle and started running it with the 'factory' bottle, hoping to double the bubbles...

Apparently all I have succeeded in is making some fish sick. They are not gasping, really... just sticking in one single spot at the top of the tank and swimming right there. Over the past few hours, it started with one fish and now I have three... everyone else in the tank looks fine, as to these guys... except for the weird 'sitting on one spot' thing.

I checked the water and it all looks fine... CO2 is still about 5 ppm, no ammonia, etc and a little nitrate, but I always do. Now before I go freaking out taking the CO2 off and doing a huge water change and messing up everything I figured I'd ask... just a weird couple of fish? As I write this the original one is still doing it, but the other two have decided to go on about the tank...

The three fish acting weird are swords, the rasboras and corys and the rest of the swords are fine... I have noticed a couple of the female swords have had a sort of clamped fin thing for the last little while... but other than just swimming with their fins down they seem perfectly active and healthy.

Suggestions? Things to check?

PS, I turned my spray bar more towards the surface to improve a little O2 exchange... how soon after should I see results?

[Tanker]

Well... I did the w/c (40% or so... any more and my intake sucks air and it's a pain to prime) and pulled out the one fish that was at the top of the water... she's dead.

That's about 5 hours from "perfectly fine" to "stiff". No signs of anything outward... so who knows. I had an Endler die today, too (different tank, completely) so maybe it was just a bad day... I have not had a loss in months (except the danio that the puffers caught) so i guess I am due??

I'll post again if the fish are freaking out tomorrow...

[neatfreak]

check temp?

[Tanker]

77 degrees and never strays. One of the first things I looked at, as well...

I figured by this morning if it was O2 starvation then I'd have a tank full of bodies but everything was perfect. May have just been the one fish sick and two others were having sympathy pains... or maybe the w/c was enough to restore balance in the world.

Or maybe it was a "fishy see, fishy do..." like in Jasper, when one person pulls over to the side of the road and three more cars pull in behind, just because the first guy 'might' be looking at something and they want to see, too.

I just thought there may be some 'unseen' side effects with a DIY mix... I know the smell is certainly 'something' and thought that may contain something less than ideal.

I'm going to go to a pressure bottle system eventually but in the mean time it would suck to kill off the fish trying to make good plants. :grr:

[pat]

I have a similar experience when I get too focus about increasing CO2 in the tank. By not disturbing the water surface, I managed to starve the fish from O2. The fish is fine after w/c. Then slowly lost apetite, swimming at the top, ...etc as the days go by. W/C on the weekend and things will be back to normal.

Now I fed room air into a DIY CO2 power reactor and fish are fine and plants are bubbling. Happy plant, happy fish.

[jvision]

It's an odd thing when adding CO2. The CO2 itself doesn't harm fish at all, but when you keep adding more when the plants are photosynthesising as much as they're going in a given system, it will eventually drive other dissolved gases out - water can only hold so much.

How are you measuring CO2? If you added more, it shouldn't be staying at 5ppm. If you're using the pH/kH chart, do you have any buffers in the water - do you change tap pH for a WC? Any shells in the tank?

The thing w. the CO2 chart, is that it depends on carbonate being the buffer.

I've found that if you need to up the pH, use Baking Soda; and, if you need to lower it, I use Seachem Acid Buffer.

Look out when you take the filters off your lights! The plants will probably bubble like champaign for a day or two (water becomes saturated w. O2), until they use up all the NPK - then you'll have to start dosing ferts... lots of fun!!

[Tanker]

I'm thinking it's just a case of sick fish. One of the swords that was pissy last night is acting up again, this time half his tail fin is shredded and he has a 'bent back'. He is 'wagging' and smimming slowly... I think he may just have to go away. I just don't have the time right now to be quarantining fish and freaking out about one or two sickies. If they were anything but $4 fish, I might give a hoot.

I'll keep an eye on the tank over the weekend and if he doesn't improve, and fast... he's gone.

As for the CO2 measurement... I ended up cutting back to one bottle. I am using the pH/KH chart method, but of course with my KH off the charts (110 mg/L, 6 degrees) and my pH 'high' (7.6) it's kinda hard to tell. I use good old right-from-the-tap Edmonton water with Prime for my w/c's, no other buffers, shells, coral, nothing. My substrate is completely inert and all I have is plants and wood... and two small chunks of lava rock (which should not be making a difference... maybe?)

I'd like to get the pH and KH down so I can squeeze more CO2 in the water, but I am reluctant to really mess with it too much. Just worried I'll crash the system, which is working ok for now... heck, the plants are so well for me right now I am tempted to just pull out the CO2, letting the ferts run their course and letting the system just run as is. Fish load should keep things running to some extent until I can get into it a bit more.

[sanct]

How much lighting do you have on the tank?!

Plants can only utilize all the co2 in your system if you have enough lighting. If not enough light alot of the co2 will not get used up and the co2 bubbling will just deplete your tank of all other gas. SO you can imagine how that can build up if not getting used up.