Okay so if plants are growing fast you have to increase the Co2 .
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No. Growth is dependent on CO2. Fast growth indicates that it's utilizing CO2 quickly, among other factors such as light and nutrients. Keeping other factors the same, i you limit CO2, growth will slow.
Are we talking about increasing and decreasing co2 ppm or adjusting needle valve? I'm under the assumption that more plants = more co2 consumption = lower co2 ppm over time if you do not adjust co2 based on bio mass. Correct me if I am wrong as I am here to further my knowledge as well.
Ben
Ben
But there is a difference between injecting too much CO2 and not enough. This all depends on how much you off-gas. I was injecting approx. 5-6 bps, and my growth virtually stunted. I ended up dealing with GDA for years. My guess is that a majority of the gas was being released into the atmosphere rather than utilized by the plants. Now that I have reduced my injection to approx.
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I'm growing Rotala H'ra, L. Mini Vietnam, Ludwigia Arcuata, HM, and Eleocharis Belem. I wouldn't call my set-up a low-tech system. I run a ADA 150watt MH pendant above an ADA 60P. I am also injecting
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Plants will and can depelete the CO2 in a system, but generally this is within the plant groups, eg it might be only 15ppm in dense plant beds and maybe 40 ppm near the water return where the incoming CO2 rich water enters.
You need 3 things basically:
1. Low/no current in the area/region of interest
2. Active plant growth
3. Little degassing(which can be part of #1)
You can still have good current and little degassing.
You can also have good current, but dead spots.
Generally, maybe 5% or less is used by plants for CO2, this might even be generous.
But.....we add a higher ppm to ensure all the plants, including those dead spots have more than enough.
CO2 is hard enough to set and dial in correctly, fiddling with it each and every time you do a trim seems laborious and more likely to louse things up real good versus just leaving it alone once you have it set correctly.
A pH controlled system would be the best solution if you felt this was an issue, but even there.........you still have dead spots etc.
You need 3 things basically:
1. Low/no current in the area/region of interest
2. Active plant growth
3. Little degassing(which can be part of #1)
You can still have good current and little degassing.
You can also have good current, but dead spots.
Generally, maybe 5% or less is used by plants for CO2, this might even be generous.
But.....we add a higher ppm to ensure all the plants, including those dead spots have more than enough.
CO2 is hard enough to set and dial in correctly, fiddling with it each and every time you do a trim seems laborious and more likely to louse things up real good versus just leaving it alone once you have it set correctly.
A pH controlled system would be the best solution if you felt this was an issue, but even there.........you still have dead spots etc.
Plants will and can depelete the CO2 in a system, but generally this is within the plant groups, eg it might be only 15ppm in dense plant beds and maybe 40 ppm near the water return where the incoming CO2 rich water enters.
You need 3 things basically:
1. Low/no current in the area/region of interest
2. Active plant growth
3. Little degassing(which can be part of #1)
You can still have good current and little degassing.
You can also have good current, but dead spots.
Generally, maybe 5% or less is used by plants for CO2, this might even be generous.
But.....we add a higher ppm to ensure all the plants, including those dead spots have more than enough.
CO2 is hard enough to set and dial in correctly, fiddling with it each and every time you do a trim seems laborious and more likely to louse things up real good versus just leaving it alone once you have it set correctly.
A pH controlled system would be the best solution if you felt this was an issue, but even there.........you still have dead spots etc.
You need 3 things basically:
1. Low/no current in the area/region of interest
2. Active plant growth
3. Little degassing(which can be part of #1)
You can still have good current and little degassing.
You can also have good current, but dead spots.
Generally, maybe 5% or less is used by plants for CO2, this might even be generous.
But.....we add a higher ppm to ensure all the plants, including those dead spots have more than enough.
CO2 is hard enough to set and dial in correctly, fiddling with it each and every time you do a trim seems laborious and more likely to louse things up real good versus just leaving it alone once you have it set correctly.
A pH controlled system would be the best solution if you felt this was an issue, but even there.........you still have dead spots etc.
I think Tom's right. Once you have it dialed in, set it and forget it. At most I move the Ideal Valve's knob maybe 1/16-1/32 a turn when I do a major trim. Now that I've removed all my stems except for the Rotala H'ra, I'll see how the tank does. I'm talking small increments of adjustment once you are in the ballpark. A far cry from 4-6 bps I was injecting before. My aquasoil is fairly new (set-up on 9/2013). I have no doubt that the aqua soil and my fish/shrimp are producing the needed nutrients. I may need to add some ferts later on.
I look at it this way...If plants are doing well and I need to trim, and trimming does stimulate growth/branching, then I may as well leave c02 alone. As in 4-6 weeks I will be back to where I started lol I would ONLY change it if the scape/biomass changed PERMANENTLY...or say going from a stem heavy scape to say an anubias carpet.
However, if going from overgrown to trimmed, I would leave it alone.
That said, watch your fish. They may react to a bit more c02 being available.
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I look at it this way...If plants are doing well and I need to trim, and trimming does stimulate growth/branching, then I may as well leave c02 alone. As in 4-6 weeks I will be back to where I started lol I would ONLY change it if the scape/biomass changed PERMANENTLY...or say going from a stem heavy scape to say an anubias carpet.
However, if going from overgrown to trimmed, I would leave it alone.
That said, watch your fish. They may react to a bit more c02 being available.
However, if going from overgrown to trimmed, I would leave it alone.
That said, watch your fish. They may react to a bit more c02 being available.
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I look at it this way...If plants are doing well and I need to trim, and trimming does stimulate growth/branching, then I may as well leave c02 alone. As in 4-6 weeks I will be back to where I started lol I would ONLY change it if the scape/biomass changed PERMANENTLY...or say going from a stem heavy scape to say an anubias carpet.
However, if going from overgrown to trimmed, I would leave it alone.
That said, watch your fish. They may react to a bit more c02 being available.
I've never seen fish respond poorly post trim, typically the other way around since there's often more current and a bit more O2 and degassing.
If you uproot and pull up a lot of muck............then do a large water change, this mitigates any of the uprooting low O2 issues and organic matter.
So as long as you do the water change after the big hacking........you are in good shape.
Matt;'s hairgrass tank is not particularly a big nutrient hog, the few stems are the only thing and the fish waste along with relatively newer ADA AS takes care of the rest.
Hairgrass is pretty tough overall.
If you uproot and pull up a lot of muck............then do a large water change, this mitigates any of the uprooting low O2 issues and organic matter.
So as long as you do the water change after the big hacking........you are in good shape.
Matt;'s hairgrass tank is not particularly a big nutrient hog, the few stems are the only thing and the fish waste along with relatively newer ADA AS takes care of the rest.
Hairgrass is pretty tough overall.
I've never seen fish respond poorly post trim, typically the other way around since there's often more current and a bit more O2 and degassing.
If you uproot and pull up a lot of muck............then do a large water change, this mitigates any of the uprooting low O2 issues and organic matter.
So as long as you do the water change after the big hacking........you are in good shape.
Matt;'s hairgrass tank is not particularly a big nutrient hog, the few stems are the only thing and the fish waste along with relatively newer ADA AS takes care of the rest.
Hairgrass is pretty tough overall.
If you uproot and pull up a lot of muck............then do a large water change, this mitigates any of the uprooting low O2 issues and organic matter.
So as long as you do the water change after the big hacking........you are in good shape.
Matt;'s hairgrass tank is not particularly a big nutrient hog, the few stems are the only thing and the fish waste along with relatively newer ADA AS takes care of the rest.
Hairgrass is pretty tough overall.
Okay I see now a low kind of plant the Hair grass as compared to say a tank with more vigorous growing plants.
Got that now, I guess turning that CO 2 back up on the 75 then.
Did turn it down a few bubbles last night as algae busting out like crazy, and will be decreasing the Fert's a tad though.
Amano shrimp should be here today, best be as two day shipping at FedEx.
Jeff
Got that now, I guess turning that CO 2 back up on the 75 then.
Did turn it down a few bubbles last night as algae busting out like crazy, and will be decreasing the Fert's a tad though.
Amano shrimp should be here today, best be as two day shipping at FedEx.
Jeff
Yeah, I think that is the main difference, too. My tank, which is a 17 gallon ADA 60P with two species of plants (e. belem and rotala H'ra), is on the low side of the nutrient hog scale. Although the H'ra is a fast grower, Tom is on the opposite end of the spectrum with his dutch-style aquarium. Tom would dose full EI. I, on the other hand, would only need to dose a little N if my fish and shrimp population decline. The Aqua Soil in my tank does the rest for now. No ferts., recommended dose of glutaraldehyde, 2 bps CO2, and my light 16" above the surface of the water = no GDA and no BBA. I also do 2x weekly >50% water changes. This is the equation that works for me, but it may not work for everyone, especially those with nutrient hog plants or a ton of plants.
Tom Barr;123718 said:
If you can manage a single species well and have consistent and nice throughout a tank, then also do a nutrient hog stem plant tanks, manage that well, then a low light tank...........and maybe a non CO2 tank............then you pretty much run most scenarios.
Awhile back on the net, I realized I can talk a great talk, but without nice examples of scapes and pictures, it's not really that strong of an argument.
You show a nice tank, thriving plants, scaping with the rare and hard to grow species under a wide range of conditions, then you pretty much can do whatever you like.
Plenty of folks can simply grow plants, but can they scape well with them? That's the REAL goal.
Many lost sight of that goal, others can do nice scapes, but are not that good at growing them, so they accept they can only use X, Y and Z plant species.
Persistent attacks on your own goal will get you there.
Awhile back on the net, I realized I can talk a great talk, but without nice examples of scapes and pictures, it's not really that strong of an argument.
You show a nice tank, thriving plants, scaping with the rare and hard to grow species under a wide range of conditions, then you pretty much can do whatever you like.
Plenty of folks can simply grow plants, but can they scape well with them? That's the REAL goal.
Many lost sight of that goal, others can do nice scapes, but are not that good at growing them, so they accept they can only use X, Y and Z plant species.
Persistent attacks on your own goal will get you there.
If you can manage a single species well and have consistent and nice throughout a tank, then also do a nutrient hog stem plant tanks, manage that well, then a low light tank...........and maybe a non CO2 tank............then you pretty much run most scenarios.
Awhile back on the net, I realized I can talk a great talk, but without nice examples of scapes and pictures, it's not really that strong of an argument.
You show a nice tank, thriving plants, scaping with the rare and hard to grow species under a wide range of conditions, then you pretty much can do whatever you like.
Plenty of folks can simply grow plants, but can they scape well with them? That's the REAL goal.
Many lost sight of that goal, others can do nice scapes, but are not that good at growing them, so they accept they can only use X, Y and Z plant species.
Persistent attacks on your own goal will get you there.
Awhile back on the net, I realized I can talk a great talk, but without nice examples of scapes and pictures, it's not really that strong of an argument.
You show a nice tank, thriving plants, scaping with the rare and hard to grow species under a wide range of conditions, then you pretty much can do whatever you like.
Plenty of folks can simply grow plants, but can they scape well with them? That's the REAL goal.
Many lost sight of that goal, others can do nice scapes, but are not that good at growing them, so they accept they can only use X, Y and Z plant species.
Persistent attacks on your own goal will get you there.
yeah, scaping is a learning process for sure. I just try to recreate what inspires me. Just replaced my 150 watt ADA MH bulb, so we'll see if there is a resurgence of GDA. I hope not. Nothing else will change. My old bulb was at least a couple years old.
Tom Barr;123903 said: