I have been having serious trouble lately keeping my co2 stable with diy. I can't afford pressurized. Would the plants be better off if I just stuck with non-co2 rather than having fluctuating levels like this? It's to the point where I'm just throwing up my hands, I can do the exact same thing twice, using yeast out of the same bottle, same recipe, and have it work for a week once and then barely work at all the second time. I think the ambient room temperature is an issue perhaps, lately it's been colder than normal so I'm thinking that's allowing lots of co2 to stay in the solution rather than building up enough pressure to get into the tank. So should I just stop doing co2?
Also in my 10g (which up until recently actuallly had the most stable level of co2) I have issues with what I think is green spot algae. It is growing on the tank walls mainly but also on my crypts, small lighter green spots. When I scrape it off the tank it smells like really strong cooked greens (not the bga rank smell). I was told to increase phosphate which I did but if anything, it's getting worse. What else would be causing this problem? Is this gsa? I have 20 watts of light on the tank, 8 hours /day but I just cut it back to 7 to try to slow down the algae before it takes over. I have two oto's but they don't seem to be eating it. I'm dosing ei. Up until the last couple of days I've had enough co2 for my plants to all be pearling when the light is on. Not sure of exact levels though. The only thing that might be deficient that I can think of is calcium, I have no hardness in my water and I don't think Plantex csm+b has calcium in it. All my plants are growing wildly though.
Also in my 10g (which up until recently actuallly had the most stable level of co2) I have issues with what I think is green spot algae. It is growing on the tank walls mainly but also on my crypts, small lighter green spots. When I scrape it off the tank it smells like really strong cooked greens (not the bga rank smell). I was told to increase phosphate which I did but if anything, it's getting worse. What else would be causing this problem? Is this gsa? I have 20 watts of light on the tank, 8 hours /day but I just cut it back to 7 to try to slow down the algae before it takes over. I have two oto's but they don't seem to be eating it. I'm dosing ei. Up until the last couple of days I've had enough co2 for my plants to all be pearling when the light is on. Not sure of exact levels though. The only thing that might be deficient that I can think of is calcium, I have no hardness in my water and I don't think Plantex csm+b has calcium in it. All my plants are growing wildly though.