Hello Tom, I have currently taken on a 300 gallon corporate account, tank is 72L by 31W by 31H. Light is 834 in the back, 3 150w metal halides and two 96 watt compacts, and soon front light will be 3 250 watt metal halides and two 96 watt compacts. Using metal halides because of the depth. I took this account on despite saying I would never do another account due to time factors and was informed that the client would be working with me to accomplish some of the tasks which gives me little control. He has consistently refused to up CO2 after I recommend it lending to Oedogonium? or Green hair algae, Spirogyra? growth (I haven't seen the algae yet, just the photo he sent, will today), due to Discus in the tank(I finally convinced him that it will not harm the Discus, and is necessary for good growth in high light, but the damage is done). Carbonate hardness is at 6 in this tank. All of the charts like Chuck Gadd's and Dupla charts state that at a carbonate hardness of 6, at 7.0 you have a CO2 level of 18, at 6.8 it is at 29, (which is the range you recommend) but also states that 6.8 and 29 MG/L is too high and in the yellow zone. So my question would be why is CO2 of 29 at 6.8 too high according to the chart and how does that adversely affect anything, and should one then raise the carbonate hardness to 8 which then at 7.0 gives a reading of 24 MG/L, which is also in the range you recommend or 25-30 MG/L? Is as the chart indicates the yellow zone amounts harmful to the fish based on the carbonate hardness. I have never been able to get a straight answer on this from anyone, and would like to know why at different KH levels even 26 (at 3.5KH) is considered too high? I do plan to take control of the CO2 situation and get that to higher levels. PO4 is at 1.0, Nitrates at 15, 25ml of tropica per day, lights on for 12 hours. Just planted four weeks ago. Foreground growth is poor due to current CF's that do not reach the bottom adequately. Two Eheim four chamber filters running, one on each side. So, cut the light to ten hours? (there are also those including Kasselman who state anything less than 12 hours is inadequate light per day, she says leading to a considerable loss of plants, I have always run twelve hours per day in our nursery, have an 8KH in all nursery tanks, and maintain at 7.0 which gives them 24MG/L CO2, and never had issues with BBA or other forms), dose Excel at 5ML per ten gallons per day to affect algae?, (water changes of how much per day, he is capable of changing 50 gallons at a time with his setup, changes are three 50's per week at present?) and SAE's added ASAP and removing plant leaves affected and CO2 at what level? According to what I have read on your site (now that I am a member again) that would be the plan for ridding the Oedogonium? or green hair algae, Spirogyra? If this email is disjointed you will have to forgive me as it is early and I am facing another 14 hour day. (Also I added amanos, cherries, and ottos for algae control from the start, did not add SAE's for fear they would decimate the Fontinalis on the driftwood, they decimated my Christmas moss in another tank.) Photos at setup; http://www.freshwateraquariumplants.com/Mendell/IMG_3104.jpg, http://www.freshwateraquariumplants.com/Mendell/IMG_3108.jpg and algae; http://www.freshwateraquariumplants.com/Mendell/IMG_3133.jpg, http://www.freshwateraquariumplants.com/Mendell/IMG_3130.jpg Regards, Don Matakis
Co2 levels according to carbonate hardness
- Thread starter aquaticscapes
- Start date
No, stick with 150W, you do not need that much light to grow anything, I mean anything, Tonias, Erios, any foreground species, L pantanal that's blood red etc.
I use my system mostly with the PC's, I'd add say another 2 x 96 w to provide wider coverage for the 31" width, but you do not need any more intensity.
with 4x 96 at say 24" apart, you can use those mostly, use the MH's at 1-3 hours max a day.
That's all.
You are taking care of this and algae and high growth rates are not thing you want to deal with, adjustable lighting is key here..............
My 180 Gal is not much different, it's same except 24x 24 instead of 31", those 7" are not that big of a difference really. The other client tank is 28x 28", I use 4x 150W, and then 4x 96W the 180 uses 3x 150W, but has the 4x96W PC's.
I use the PC's mostly, on the larger tank, 28x28, I use the MH's all the time, but......the lights are 20-24" off the water surface! The tank at home, about 16", they are both Coralife aqua light pro's.
If the client wants algae and high light, not much you can do.
No one will ever be able to solve this issue for him.
You can send a link to the large behemoth tank and tell him to ask me.
He's not going to like what he hears............he's not paying me and I am pretty straight with the trade offs and options.
Many clients are going to be hard headed, they want high light and all this stuff, but then have very little clue about CO2.
Now the light is about 1.6 W a gal in that massive tank.
His newer tank is also, 1.4-1.6 W/gal.
My tanks run at 2w/gal..........
Discus are fine up to about 40ppm or so...........this is using the partial pressure of dissolved CO2, and continuously monitored and data logged using graphing software. So I look and see what has occurred at any point during the day, week, month, year etc.
To +/- 1ppm of CO2.
So can the client and adjust as they see fit.
This made a dramatic difference for the client.
They cost about 2000$, then the labor to install them.
So it's not cheap.
You know the issues with using the pH/KH chart..........
The other thing is adding a relay switch to turn something on, when the light switch goes off, this way you can run powerheads, aeration etc when the lights are turned off and you no longer need any CO2 enrichment.
Discus will turn dark when the O2 is low and the CO2 is too high(at about 40ppm or so).
Chuck's chart is based to a large degree of older ideas from PMDD(they suggested 15ppm, but that was when folks had 1.2-1.5W on a 125 gal tank using NO FL's and no reflectors!), so do not think they are critical.
I and other folks elsewhere had been suggesting adding more CO2 for a long time.
You can either watch carefully and do this progressively, or get some rather techy meters that cost $$$. This is hard if you are a service guy........if it's your tank: not so hard...........
Best thing is to reduce this guy's light intensity IMO, and add aeration at night so that it does not overlap with the lighting.
Light drives CO2 demand, so light is the best weapon you have and will reduce the demand for CO2, so this guy will have more wiggle room with CO2 to get decent growth.
But......you have to convince them that the tank will look nice with lower light, they all do, but getting people to believe it is hard.
They go crazy high/waste/over dose like mad with light, run skimp/too lean with CO2, then too lean with nutrients.
It should be the reverse.
If you look at the behemoth thread, those are some massive fish and we have the best method know to measure CO2 directly as well as data collection.
So we know what the limits are for these fish, some of which are wild, some ugly tank bred, but still larger than this client's fish I'd say. 40-45ppm is about the range at 84F.
Most any other fish can handle more.
Note, the CO2 ppm's are not based on any parameters, obviously if the O2 is 4ppm and 9 ppm in two different tanks, the effects of CO2 will be markedly different, as well as current and other factors.............these are not considered when looking at actual raw values for CO2.
So they are not comparable across systems, because systems are more complex than one mere variable...........
I'd reduce the KH if anything, not raise it for discus at KH = 6.
Just leave it.
Light s= 10 hours max,.
That will help also.
Kassleman is welcomed to show Amano and me up any day, as well as the ADA contestants as far 10 hour or less time frames for lighting. I wait for her top ranking and explanation why so many have nice tanks without 12 hours.
I wonder if these folks try to see if what they say is true sometimes.
3 x 50 gal a week is good.
See if you can set up the system to do it automated and then try 5x week.
This should help.
Excel will really help also till the CO2 is better adjusted.
They will need gallons of it though.
See what the client is willing to do.
Their input is critical to making the decisions.
Then you can go from there.
Regards,
Tom Barr
I use my system mostly with the PC's, I'd add say another 2 x 96 w to provide wider coverage for the 31" width, but you do not need any more intensity.
with 4x 96 at say 24" apart, you can use those mostly, use the MH's at 1-3 hours max a day.
That's all.
You are taking care of this and algae and high growth rates are not thing you want to deal with, adjustable lighting is key here..............
My 180 Gal is not much different, it's same except 24x 24 instead of 31", those 7" are not that big of a difference really. The other client tank is 28x 28", I use 4x 150W, and then 4x 96W the 180 uses 3x 150W, but has the 4x96W PC's.
I use the PC's mostly, on the larger tank, 28x28, I use the MH's all the time, but......the lights are 20-24" off the water surface! The tank at home, about 16", they are both Coralife aqua light pro's.
If the client wants algae and high light, not much you can do.
No one will ever be able to solve this issue for him.
You can send a link to the large behemoth tank and tell him to ask me.
He's not going to like what he hears............he's not paying me and I am pretty straight with the trade offs and options.
Many clients are going to be hard headed, they want high light and all this stuff, but then have very little clue about CO2.
Now the light is about 1.6 W a gal in that massive tank.
His newer tank is also, 1.4-1.6 W/gal.
My tanks run at 2w/gal..........
Discus are fine up to about 40ppm or so...........this is using the partial pressure of dissolved CO2, and continuously monitored and data logged using graphing software. So I look and see what has occurred at any point during the day, week, month, year etc.
To +/- 1ppm of CO2.
So can the client and adjust as they see fit.
This made a dramatic difference for the client.
They cost about 2000$, then the labor to install them.
So it's not cheap.
You know the issues with using the pH/KH chart..........
The other thing is adding a relay switch to turn something on, when the light switch goes off, this way you can run powerheads, aeration etc when the lights are turned off and you no longer need any CO2 enrichment.
Discus will turn dark when the O2 is low and the CO2 is too high(at about 40ppm or so).
Chuck's chart is based to a large degree of older ideas from PMDD(they suggested 15ppm, but that was when folks had 1.2-1.5W on a 125 gal tank using NO FL's and no reflectors!), so do not think they are critical.
I and other folks elsewhere had been suggesting adding more CO2 for a long time.
You can either watch carefully and do this progressively, or get some rather techy meters that cost $$$. This is hard if you are a service guy........if it's your tank: not so hard...........
Best thing is to reduce this guy's light intensity IMO, and add aeration at night so that it does not overlap with the lighting.
Light drives CO2 demand, so light is the best weapon you have and will reduce the demand for CO2, so this guy will have more wiggle room with CO2 to get decent growth.
But......you have to convince them that the tank will look nice with lower light, they all do, but getting people to believe it is hard.
They go crazy high/waste/over dose like mad with light, run skimp/too lean with CO2, then too lean with nutrients.
It should be the reverse.
If you look at the behemoth thread, those are some massive fish and we have the best method know to measure CO2 directly as well as data collection.
So we know what the limits are for these fish, some of which are wild, some ugly tank bred, but still larger than this client's fish I'd say. 40-45ppm is about the range at 84F.
Most any other fish can handle more.
Note, the CO2 ppm's are not based on any parameters, obviously if the O2 is 4ppm and 9 ppm in two different tanks, the effects of CO2 will be markedly different, as well as current and other factors.............these are not considered when looking at actual raw values for CO2.
So they are not comparable across systems, because systems are more complex than one mere variable...........
I'd reduce the KH if anything, not raise it for discus at KH = 6.
Just leave it.
Light s= 10 hours max,.
That will help also.
Kassleman is welcomed to show Amano and me up any day, as well as the ADA contestants as far 10 hour or less time frames for lighting. I wait for her top ranking and explanation why so many have nice tanks without 12 hours.
I wonder if these folks try to see if what they say is true sometimes.
3 x 50 gal a week is good.
See if you can set up the system to do it automated and then try 5x week.
This should help.
Excel will really help also till the CO2 is better adjusted.
They will need gallons of it though.
See what the client is willing to do.
Their input is critical to making the decisions.
Then you can go from there.
Regards,
Tom Barr
BTW, as you know, there's hardly any plants in there.
The CO2 is 40ppm and the light is about 1.6W/gal, depth is 48"
I saw the fry living on the parent's skin in this tank last month, all those gold angels are bred in this tank, they have never seen another tank.
Now if 40ppm has fish breeding, we have excellent data acquisition, who do you think is right and has met the critical requirements for methods?
Chuck has never bred Discus near as I can tell, nor have many of the folks that claim such stuff.
Mine bred in the 1990's in a community tank also(which is harder than a discus only tank) with similar CO2 levels. George Booth use to claim they are hurt by more than 15ppm of CO2. Nice to say, but the above falsifies it and the method for CO2 determination is far superior.
More careful measurements and better experimental design/control.
This is the 450 Gal new tank:
I'd add another Ehiem pro etc
regards,
Tom Barr
The CO2 is 40ppm and the light is about 1.6W/gal, depth is 48"
I saw the fry living on the parent's skin in this tank last month, all those gold angels are bred in this tank, they have never seen another tank.
Now if 40ppm has fish breeding, we have excellent data acquisition, who do you think is right and has met the critical requirements for methods?
Chuck has never bred Discus near as I can tell, nor have many of the folks that claim such stuff.
Mine bred in the 1990's in a community tank also(which is harder than a discus only tank) with similar CO2 levels. George Booth use to claim they are hurt by more than 15ppm of CO2. Nice to say, but the above falsifies it and the method for CO2 determination is far superior.
More careful measurements and better experimental design/control.
This is the 450 Gal new tank:
I'd add another Ehiem pro etc
regards,
Tom Barr
Re: Co2 levels according to carbonate hardness
Hello Tom, first of all thank you for your experienced insight. Everything you say makes sense. I think the reason I have no problems at 12 hours in the nursery is lower light levels, flourescents and CF's, and much denser planting in our nursery, (we are not aquascaping but using every available inch of space in every tank within reason). In the clients 300 gallon I am raising halides up off of the tank more, going to ten hours, bubbler for fourteen, going to 30PPM's of CO2 which would be PH of 6.8. I did a three day blackout on Monday with Excel dosing and 100 gallon water change each day and algae is gone, it was clogging the filter intake as it died. Plants are fine, albeit a little pale. Color will come back quickly. NO3 is at 15 MG/L, PO4 is 1 MG/L, adding tropica at 25 ML's per day. The automated water change was my original advice to him but when he checked plumbing costs to run it to his office he decided against it due to the high cost. He devised a fifty gallon barrel times two on wheels system which works fine. OK, I'm really not going to take on any more service accounts after this! He He! Thank you again! Regards, Don Matakis
Hello Tom, first of all thank you for your experienced insight. Everything you say makes sense. I think the reason I have no problems at 12 hours in the nursery is lower light levels, flourescents and CF's, and much denser planting in our nursery, (we are not aquascaping but using every available inch of space in every tank within reason). In the clients 300 gallon I am raising halides up off of the tank more, going to ten hours, bubbler for fourteen, going to 30PPM's of CO2 which would be PH of 6.8. I did a three day blackout on Monday with Excel dosing and 100 gallon water change each day and algae is gone, it was clogging the filter intake as it died. Plants are fine, albeit a little pale. Color will come back quickly. NO3 is at 15 MG/L, PO4 is 1 MG/L, adding tropica at 25 ML's per day. The automated water change was my original advice to him but when he checked plumbing costs to run it to his office he decided against it due to the high cost. He devised a fifty gallon barrel times two on wheels system which works fine. OK, I'm really not going to take on any more service accounts after this! He He! Thank you again! Regards, Don Matakis
It's fine to take on service accounts if they are semi automated water changes.
I tell them due to the mess involved and the time, or should they take on the service at some point in the future , if there's a problem etc, the water change is very easy..........would you try and do this for a pond, hot tub or pool with buckets?
If not, do not take the account, they often are cheap if they cannot afford a plumber.
But sometimes a simple hose to and fro is all you need, if there is a water outlet within 100ft, you can drain and fill.
3/4" garden hose can drain and fill in about 1.5 hours.
I use a LG sump pump, 1200gph, so the drain is fast and the refill is quick with most water pressure(400-800gph).
So in/out in 1 hour or so, work on the tank while it drains and fills.
Algae issues at the large scale are a lot of work, but...........they are par for the course. That's why I charge a lot. I do not work for chicken feed.
Not worth it.
So be smart/smarter with business decisions and pricing here.
Know what's a deal and what is just a PITA. Some clients are cheap, some have other constraints, that you can work with, but charge appropriately.
If you make 100$ hr, or charge by the day(I do this), then work hard to get the job done for them.
Regards,
Tom Barr
I tell them due to the mess involved and the time, or should they take on the service at some point in the future , if there's a problem etc, the water change is very easy..........would you try and do this for a pond, hot tub or pool with buckets?
If not, do not take the account, they often are cheap if they cannot afford a plumber.
But sometimes a simple hose to and fro is all you need, if there is a water outlet within 100ft, you can drain and fill.
3/4" garden hose can drain and fill in about 1.5 hours.
I use a LG sump pump, 1200gph, so the drain is fast and the refill is quick with most water pressure(400-800gph).
So in/out in 1 hour or so, work on the tank while it drains and fills.
Algae issues at the large scale are a lot of work, but...........they are par for the course. That's why I charge a lot. I do not work for chicken feed.
Not worth it.
So be smart/smarter with business decisions and pricing here.
Know what's a deal and what is just a PITA. Some clients are cheap, some have other constraints, that you can work with, but charge appropriately.
If you make 100$ hr, or charge by the day(I do this), then work hard to get the job done for them.
Regards,
Tom Barr