drop checker
- Thread starter Saniago
- Start date
If the concentration of CO2 in the water where the drop checker is located is not stable, the drop checker reading will be nearly meaningless, no matter how long you wait. It will always lag any change in the water by an hour or so.
My drop checker gradually changes color while the co2 is on, it goes from blue to green to light green. I have an in line reactor and believe the co2 is well diffused I never thought of stability to be and issue. If I add more the fish stresses at the last ten minutes of the photo period. should I drop the co2 a little and start it up sooner or dose this sound right?
Saniago;35548 said:
Or perhaps break the surface a tad more with your spray bar for some O2 exchange....
If I under stand this right: I think of the co2 like water filling a cup. The cup has three levels the first one is the fill , the second the ideal level, and the third to much. So we want this to stay at the second level for the total of the photo period. I think of the co2 as a drip filling the cup, the slower the drip the longer it will stay at the desired level with out over flowing. But the longer it will take to get to the desired level. This may mean that the timer should be turned on a few hours before the lights come on. At that slow rate it should stay at the green state for the whole photo period with out over flowing and going in to the third level. So with two adjustments we can time the bubble rate for the duration of the photo period and the timer so it is filled to optimum level when the photo period begins. Taken in to concern with the bubble rate is the pants up take so the cup dose not fall in to the fill level. This is what I use to visualize CO2. Is this one par with what is going on?
You can look at it that way. You could also consider visualizing a hole in the bottom of the cup draining it. The hole would be the uptake from the plants, surface agitation causing outgassing, etc. You want to be able to get enough into the cup to have a decent level, but not so much that you overflow the cup ( at which point you harm the fish ).
This would be for the dissolved CO2 methods. Misting is a bit of a different beast in that the CO2 isn't dissolved into the water so much as it floats around and sticks to the plants allowing the plants better/direct/faster access to the CO2.
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S
This would be for the dissolved CO2 methods. Misting is a bit of a different beast in that the CO2 isn't dissolved into the water so much as it floats around and sticks to the plants allowing the plants better/direct/faster access to the CO2.
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S