Put together my first planted tank with CO2

[wesleydnunder]

Re: Put together my first planted tank with CO2

Your sponge filter and your other filter are moving the water to the surface of the tank continually. That's where the gaseous exchange takes place, at the surface. The bubble bar just moves water to the surface at an increased rate. The bubbles aren't what's putting oxygen in the water...contact at the surface is. Also, your plants won't provide enough oxygen for the fish. Even in the most heavily planted tanks the movement of water to the surface is needed to ensure adequate oxygenation. During the daylight period your plants take in co2 and give off oxygen. At night this process reverses and a heavily planted tank can wind up with depleted o2 and high levels of co2...not good for your fish. While yours isn't heavily planted yet, it may be someday. So you turn the bubble bar on at night to move more water to the surface, increasing oxygenation while at the same time causing surface agitation, which will gas off the unneeded co2.

Mark

[Krisvalkyrie]

Re: Put together my first planted tank with CO2

OK, so if I understand, turn off the bubble bar during the day, as it is keeping my plants from getting their CO2.  Turn it on at night to get rid of the extra CO2 now that the plants are also giving off CO2.


Thank you everyone for your advice :)

Kris

[thomas]

Re: Put together my first planted tank with CO2

True. You got it well, Kris. Try that and you'll see some improvements in the tank.

[Krisvalkyrie]

Re: Put together my first planted tank with CO2

Thanks!

Always looking for better ways to keep the fish and plants happy and healthy!

Kris

[ponyrandy]

Re: Put together my first planted tank with CO2

On a yeast  setup I would not aerate at night at all. You aren't getting that much co2 in the tank to start with so any co2 that the plants give off at night will help jump start the next day. I also would not run the sponge filter at all either because even though circulation is good, the bubbles and turbulence are bad. The best way would be to use a powerhead to disperse the co2 which would also give good flow in the tank without causing surface agitation (not to mention better dispersal of the co2). As a side note, many hobbyists are running pressurised co2 24 hours without any problems. If you are concerned about co2 levels you can always get a drop checker, but with the setup you have, you won't have to worry about the fish.
Brian

[mahoro]

Re: Put together my first planted tank with CO2

how about this, give a full spec of your tank, i think it would be easiler to help you out, when i used to do diy co2, i would connect the yeast bottle into a diy bubble counter, it tells me how much co2 is going into the tank, and it also catches any yeast that might have escaped from the yeast bottle
what you can do is get a elite mini filter, its like under 10 bucks at petco, you can hook up your diy co2, and you can also hook it to a timmer, so its only on during day time, at night time the extra co2 will just form a gaint  bubble and float away with no worries...  and i won't worry about too much co2 from a diy co2, i never had that problem with that for my 10g tank, but if you are really worry about too much co2, just run a small air stone, you don't need that gaint bar...  the biggest thing is not to break the surface during the day, and try to break just a little during night...