What is the effect of OD'ing CO2

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Hi,

If I was to have a dodgy test kit which meant my tank was running at approx 74ppm CO2 what would be the effect on algae growth please?

Cheers
 

Frolicsome_Flora

Guru Class Expert
Jan 12, 2007
351
0
16
49
Dorset, UK
sophos9;15770 said:
Hi,

If I was to have a dodgy test kit which meant my tank was running at approx 74ppm CO2 what would be the effect on algae growth please?

Cheers

none, but your fish would hate you, then probably die unless you have very good surface agitation.

Also, any test kit is really dodgy, drop checkers are the only way of knowing fairly certainly how much co2 you actually have. The slightest misreading/inaccuracy on a test kit will yield results wildly all over the place, not to mention that testing your tank water isnt reliable due to the other things that can effect ph.
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Thanks for your reply... The fish do hate me! I've been running 6.4PH with 6KH - had some loses, drop checker has shown light green

The reason for asking about algae is I have an algae problem of which I'm trying to find root cause, surely the amount of carbon produced, if not being utilised by the biomass would give algae an essential ingredient? I have a 1.5wpg...

Many thanks
 

Frolicsome_Flora

Guru Class Expert
Jan 12, 2007
351
0
16
49
Dorset, UK
sophos9;15785 said:
Thanks for your reply... The fish do hate me! I've been running 6.4PH with 6KH - had some loses, drop checker has shown light green

The reason for asking about algae is I have an algae problem of which I'm trying to find root cause, surely the amount of carbon produced, if not being utilised by the biomass would give algae an essential ingredient? I have a 1.5wpg...

Many thanks

make sure you have a good surface movement, i cant stress how important that is, and make sure your not adding co2 at night. those 2 things will mean you can add far more co2 safely during the photoperiod.

how are you dosing your tank? if your limiting your plants by a nutrient they wont grow, and the algae will as they need far less of the same things.

read the threads on the estimative index, and follow it as close as you can, and all your algae issues will likely go away. Its not going to be co2 thats causing it, its going to be a nutrient problem somewhere.
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Thanks for the reply...

Ok, there is not much surface agitation, a 300pa Eheim pump is on the left of the tank positioned approx half way up the tank, it purpose to push the diffused CO2 around the mid back of the plants. The spray bar is at the top left and points diagonally (45dg) down towards the bottom of the tank. Are you suggesting surface agitation 24hrs?

Being low light, I'm dosing 2 x weekly 5ppm of KNO3 and 2 x weekly 5ml Flourish trace. Substrate is made up of laterite, Tetrapro complete and JBL floropol. When I see nitrates going up I dose 5ppm of K2SO4 - no K2HPO4 is added

I've read lots of threads on EI however cannot find any for the position I'm in with lighting etc... Any input would be great!
 

Frolicsome_Flora

Guru Class Expert
Jan 12, 2007
351
0
16
49
Dorset, UK
Not adding any PO4 is likely your issue. Plants need PO4 as much as they need CO2.

Follow the link in my sig to the nutrient calculater to work out what you need to be adding. For your lighting Id add 60% of what it tells you to, (Tom please correct me if Im wrong on that).

You need to provide everything the plants need, once your plants are growing well, they will outcompete the algae for resources and the algae will go.

Its a commonly stated misconception that PO4 causes algae.. limiting your plants growth by anything other than light is a large cause of algae.. algae is an opportunist beast, itll jump on any gaps in your maintinence/feeding schedules and exploit them.

In your garden outside, what happens if your plants arent growing well? They become stunted and unattractive, but also, weeds take over. Algae is just a weed.
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Thanks... Would you agitate the surface 24hrs? If so, what's your feelings on CO2 loss overnight and PH drop? No hidden agenda here, I think its just a logical thing to do but there is some really bad press about it.

Now measuring phosphates...
 

Frolicsome_Flora

Guru Class Expert
Jan 12, 2007
351
0
16
49
Dorset, UK
sophos9;15790 said:
Thanks... Would you agitate the surface 24hrs? If so, what's your feelings on CO2 loss overnight and PH drop? No hidden agenda here, I think its just a logical thing to do but there is some really bad press about it.

Now measuring phosphates...

agitate surface 24/7, you dont need to create waves, just a nice ripple, co2 loss is not much, and co2 is cheap as hell anyway. It gives your fish a rest during the night, and at night plants release co2 anyway. this will allow you to increase your co2 during the day considerably, for me its about double. so long as your fish are happy, theres no such thing as too much co2.

forget your test kits, measuring for any of those things is pretty hit and miss unles youve calibrated them and even then, well.. its hit and miss. the beauty of EI is that you dont need to measure, because your adding what you KNOW your plants are going to need.. when things are running nicely, adding more than you need isnt an issue either.. so testing becomes redundent.
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Hi, I've repositioned the spray bar to create a ripple and will leave that 24/7

My phosphates are between 1 and 5ppm, agree about test kits. I've just measured out K2SO4 and KH2HPO4 and will look at dosing a third less than high light. Have just dosed sulphate/phosphate so fingers crossed!

Will be increasing CO2 rate over the next few days, live tester is reading green, PH 6.8 and KH6 so pretty much around the mark I think

The algae is a green hair / fuzz, then for some reason I get a massive amount of brown slimy algae - this related to a missing nutrient?
 

Frolicsome_Flora

Guru Class Expert
Jan 12, 2007
351
0
16
49
Dorset, UK
You have ok light, your reasonably sure you have ok co2, so the only thing it can be is nutrients :) dosing EI removes that option, and leaves you only co2 to worry about. life becomes much simpler then.
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Lighting is a 10hr straight period using Hagan Life-glo 2 tubes and 1 juwel tube, should be fine

What sort of time period would you think to start seeing the demise of some algae, days, weeks, months?
 

Frolicsome_Flora

Guru Class Expert
Jan 12, 2007
351
0
16
49
Dorset, UK
if your issues are really serious, consider doing a 3 day TOTAL blackout.. itll magicaly remove all of it during that time. Tom has a thread up about doing it, search it out and do the water changes he suggests. Then after that, start dosing EI and you should be onto a winner.

Without the blackout, it depends on how bad things are as to how long it will take.
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Thanks for all your help

Things are pretty bad, approx 40% has algae, rest is clear... Will dose EI for a few weeks and measure the difference then make the decision on blackout

Many thanks again
 

VaughnH

Lifetime Charter Member
Lifetime Member
Jan 24, 2005
3,011
97
48
88
Sacramento, CA
Most algae will not die as a result of changing fertilization schemes. Most will require either pruning away the infested leaves or killing the algae with Excel, bleach or peroxide. Green water will die with a blackout, but I haven't seen other algae do that. Once you get rid of what is in the tank, clean the tank good, then a good fertilization program with adequate CO2 and no more than needed lights-on time, will do wonders in stopping it from coming back.
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Hi Vaughn, thanks for that... I prune weekly removing the worst leaves/stems so will keep this up. Hopefully, the leaves that need removing over the weeks should become less and less...?
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
After dosing phosphates yesterday, in under 24hrs the algae as grown as a guess about a third of its size again

This is the one of the algae types, brown slimy stuff

post-21183-1175876134.jpg


CO2 is spot on and stable, lighting period is good - how come after I've dosed phosphates does the algae multiply so much?
 

RlxdN10sity

Prolific Poster
Jan 28, 2007
68
0
6
I'm no expert but that does not exactly strike me as algae. How much and what source of phosphates did you dose? Have you ever dosed phosphate before now?
 

sophos9

Junior Poster
Apr 5, 2007
15
0
1
Hi, I have dosed phosphates before but only for a short period, what do you think it is then?
 

Frolicsome_Flora

Guru Class Expert
Jan 12, 2007
351
0
16
49
Dorset, UK
Its definitely algae, but as vaughn says, you need to get rid of the algae manually by pruning, cleaning etc. This is why i suggested doing a blackout, cleaning everything thoroughly, THEN changing dosing scheme.. that way you can hit the ground running.