What's my real CO2 ?

[reiverix]

Water straight from tap - pH7
Tap water after 24 hours - pH7.4 (the water company adds CO2)

Tank water after CO2 injection - pH6.5
Tank water after 24 hours - pH6.9

My KH is 4 so I should have CO2 at around 34ppm. But my tank water has a lower pH than from the tap, I'm assuming because I have two largish pieces of driftwood. So how do I measure CO2, taking into account the fact that the wood is lowering my pH?

 

[Spar]

Re: What's my real CO2 ?

is the tanic release from the wood just lowering your pH or can you tell if a decrease of KH is occuring?

 

[defdac]

Re: What's my real CO2 ?

So how do I measure CO2, taking into account the fact that the wood is lowering my pH?

An easy way is to breath down a small cup of aquarium water for about 5 minutes with a straw (don't pass out and measure the pH. The color you recieve from the pH-test is the color you should shoot for.

If the plants doesn't pearl with that pH, adjust you bubbel-rate up until fish gasps, then turn down just a notch.

 

[reiverix]

Re: What's my real CO2 ?

I did not know that. Sounds like fun so I'll give it a go The reason I was asking is one of the wood pieces is quite new and some BBA started forming on it. My plants pearl fine but I can't help thinking my CO2 is lower than what seems. I killed off the BBA by spot treating it with Excel and it hasn't grown back but some staghorn is starting grow on my bolbitis.

 

[[email protected]]

Re: What's my real CO2 ?

I killed off the BBA by spot treating it with Excel and it hasn't grown back but some staghorn is starting grow on my bolbitis.

How did you spot treat with Excel??????

 

[reiverix]

Re: What's my real CO2 ?

I used a 5ml babies ear dropper from Wal-Mart. Slowly shoot it at the algae. All it takes is enough to make sure the BBA gets exposed so I was careful not to overdose. I limited myself to a max of 10ml a day in a 75g and after a few days the algae was red and dying. My ammano shrimp took a liking to it at this stage and polished it off.

I've also turned up my CO2 a notch and so far so good. I removed the staghorn but had to sacrifice a few of my older bolbitis leaves, which really sucks as some of them were quite big and took an age to grow.