3 replies to this topic

[Ryan-w]

Hi all. I keep looking into running co2 in my tank but it is confusing the hell out of me, can some one try and simplify it for me.

I have discus and I'm currently setting up a new tank that's 11ft long 2ft deep 18" wide

I live in ascot and my water is around the 8s in ph so I usualy run 100% RO and load it up with discus trace so they still have all the important bits in there water.

If I moved to co2 and just used tap water would I have to be putting way too much co2 in the tank to keep it at a low ph 6.5ish? It's a heavily planted tank so I know the plants will be happy but what about the fish?
If I stick with just ro water the co2 will probably never turn on using a ph controler and mixing ro and tap water becomes even more work.

Can any one help? Please keep it simple co2 is all new to me just trying to get my head around it

[Rovik]

If you use a controller, the amount of CO2 needed to bring your pH down to your target pH (What pH you want) is proportional to your carbonate hardness (KH').

 

Carbonate Hardness...In a nut shell is your waters ability to resist a change in pH, or resistance a decrease in pH caused by acids acids (Carbonic Acid in this case...Which is produced when CO2 dissolves).

 

So naturally the more KH you have, the more acid (In this case CO2) you will need to bring down your pH.

 

You will need to test your KH to determine if your target pH can be reached with sensible amount of CO2.

 

Once you have done that you can use the chart below to correlate your given KH' to your desired pH and see if that level of CO2 is too high.

Note that 30ppm of CO2 is considered high but I have kept fish happily in 80ppm...

 

 

 

 

If your KH is suitable, CO2 will be a much cheaper way, long term to reduce your pH to the desired level. 

Far more so than throwing away 4 liters of good water for even 1 liter of RO water you produce....If your tap waters fine, Using RO would just be wasteful. 

 

If you need some more direction, feel free to bring a water sample of your tap water to Aquotix, either Chris or myself can test you KH (free of charge) and explain a little more in depth.

 

Here is some further reading on KH:

 

http://www.aquotix.c...t/water-quality

 

 

Hope you find this helpful.

Cheers, Rov.

[Ryan-w]

Awsome thanks Rov. You guys are currently building my new tank (the big 11fter) I'll take you up on that with coming in and testing my tap water too see what my options are

[kassysimon]

Hi Ryan.
You'll find that those charts tend to be less accurate at larger volumes of water.

I have a planted ten foot and I couldn't understand why I had no pearling with a KH of 8 and PH of 6.8. After a lot of reading I found that these charts are more a guide and less a target.

I set a PH of 6.8 with a CO2 probe and left that alone. With that as a fixed component I could then work out the other factors.
What I found made the biggest change to plant growth is lighting and then fertilizing.

Good lighting makes a huge difference and is THE deciding factor in algae growth versus plant growth.

I'm happy to explain the setup that works for me including inline heaters, probes, regulators, CO2 diffusing, fertilizing, auto top off and auto water change.

An 11 foot planted tank is simple to run if setup properly. All I do is trim plants and feed fish. Gravel vacuuming is minimal and everything else is automatic.
I recommend automating as much as possible with a tank that size.

Check out some of my threads for pics of my tank.




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