oxygen.....

[Blossom112]

I need to figure out a way to get more oxygen into the tank without affecting the plants .
I have tried Co2 on in day bubbler on at night ,and seeme to me my bottom dwellers arent getting enough oxygen .

High tech planted 40gl breeder.
pressurized Co2 ....hydropinic ferts...6wpg(could be more have to check again )
any thaughts ........
thanks

[phanmc]

Use a powerhead to increase flow and add some surface surface ripple.

[jmhart]

Why do you think you don't have enough O2.....have you thought about it being too much co2? How are you measuring how much co2 you are putting in?

[Bajanfish]

Why do you think you don't have enough O2.....have you thought about it being too much co2? How are you measuring how much co2 you are putting in?

x2... if your C02 is too high fish will also gasp at the top. If youre only using the PH/KH chart for guidance you will likely be off. More than an airstone, you need proper surface agitation and also good flow as phanmc mentioned to get the oxygen distributed evenly. However with that amount of light and pressurized C02 your plants should be giving off enough oxygen in the day. I have 2.2WPG with PressC02 and my plants pearl and bead oxygen like crazy. Sometimes I dont even turn my airstone on at night and they're fine.

[Blossom112]

Well ...funny you should add about pearl and bead i havent see that in 2 weeks .....
hubby times the co2 for 10 seconds .... should be 4 . but we turned it down when we saw the plecs having trouble .

Yes sorry their are 2 powerheads ....
and now i have some thinking to do .
The fish that were in the tank seemed ok was just the plecs .
Once i w/c tonight i shall check all equipment and clean powerheads and see if that helps at all .
when their isnt enough O2 in the water plecos go to the top for oxygen so it was making me think there wasnt enough for them .

thanks all

[Jag1980]

10 bubbles per second?

[DAVIDFBT]

Have you looked for a drop checker to measure the amount of CO2 in your tank?

[Blossom112]

indicator ..... is always blue . now because when its green thats when the plecs go to the top .
i cleaned and reset it in ...

1 drop -10 sec - 1 drop- 10 sec

supposed to be 1 drop-4 sec or even 3 ........this is what we read .....unless my hubby is wrong lol

so i did my waterchange cleaned the power heads and set the Co2 at 4 seconds ... and we shall see what the plecs do
heres a picture of what i think your talking about lol

I am new to this ....

[Jag1980]

For a tank that size it should be more like 4 bubbles per second..
If you just do 1 bubble every 10 seconds your wasting your time.

If you are just going to leave the Co2 indicator blue, you should remove the whole Co2 system since no Co2 is going into the tank anyway.
With that much watts and such little Co2, your 40 gallon will be a Algae breeding tank.
I think you should be in the very light green on your drop checker with that amount of light. Trying using only one of your light bulbs, that should give you 2.4wpg over your tank? I think that will do you much better to prevent issues you might have very soon. How long has your tank been set up like this?

Not sure why your plecos are being that sensitive with such a small amount of Co2 in your water?

[Blossom112]

ohhh thank you very much !!!!!:dance:
this is what i was trying to tell hubby .....but he said he read up on it ...
but then he didnt factor in the lighting (hehehe) now i can say he was wrong .... I tried to tell him it needed to be light green ,as there was no pearling and some of my plants look like crap .
I shall set it the way you say and see how the plecs act and the plants look .....
really glad i asked the question .
I have 4 zebra plecs coming on the weekend so i best to test it with the BN's b4 i move them .
So it wouldnt hurt to have a bubbler on at night to ease my mind about the plecs and off when the lighs are on .
Thank you verry much!!

how you know it was a 40 gl breeder tank ?lol think its like 43gl
I have a lot more plants now

[Blossom112]

I was gonna buy another powerhead but .... im adding my other canister 2126 next week and that should help with more surface movement .
So we will have 1 canister on each side .
any more advice greatly appreciated

[Jag1980]

You mentioned that it was a 40 gal in your first post ;)

Bubbler will be OK at night since you don't need Co2 in the water at that time anyway.

I set my Co2 tank to come on about 2 hours before the lights comes on so that the Co2 levels are up before I turn on the lights.

What type of filtration are you using?

If you have a canister filter on your tank I would go with about 2 to 3 bubbles per second and see what color you get at the end of the day and adjust form there. You don't really want bright yellow, you want to see green tint.

I use a EMP-400 on my tank so I have to use more Co2 because some gets gassed of from the filtration. I got about 3 to 4 bubbles per second on my tank setup.

What fertilizers are you using and what kinda schedule are you on for dosing? Higher light requires allot more work and things can go bad very quick.

[Jag1980]

I was gonna buy another powerhead but .... im adding my other canister 2126 next week and that should help with more surface movement .
So we will have 1 canister on each side .
any more advice greatly appreciated

Surface movement is good as long as the water doesn't break, or your Co2 will be getting gassed out of the water, then you might have to adjust the bubbles per second to compensate for the gas you lose.

Is your Co2 tank and lights on a timer?
Best investment you can make for a planted tank :thm:

I'm not sure how much you already know, so I'm just throwing out a bunch of different things at you :)

[Star_Rider]

make sure your drop checker has the proper dkh too.
(4dkh) if the solution is wrong the drop checker won't measure correctly

[Blossom112]

ok .... i have it set and is now green ...
lights and Co2 are on a timer together

canister 1 E,2213
canister 2. E-PRO ,2126 going on in a week .

it is set a 1 drop per 3 sec ... and its green so i shall just wait now and watch and maybe set it better .

We use hydroponic for dousing , 1 teaspoon per small ( drinking water bottle ) every 2 to 3 days ...

THIS IS WHAT I USE
http://www.hydrotechhydroponics.com/sandbox/index.php/Six-Pack-Fertilizers/Trace-Elements-100g/flypage.tpl.html

THANKS A BUNCH ALL GREAT ADVICE I SHALL KEEP ALL IN MIND !!!!!

A big phew you all saved my butt lol
how long after lights on should i see pearling , this will indicate if i need to higher Co2?
so with 2 canisters i may have to higher Co2 ....

oh just as i said that i saw a bubbly float to the top lol

thanks

[Jag1980]

:perv:...

[Blossom112]

ok i think i got it spot on the green eariler was darker then now plants are starting to look better .
I shall watch it the next few days .....
thanks all .

[Riiz]

After reading through this thread, I've got a couple of question/comments. In your Drop Checker, what are you putting into it. If its tank or distilled water, that would explain the off readings, you need certified 4 Kdh fluid and a few drops of pH indicator.

Second, what are you using to dose your macros, ie. N-P-K, those are usually important if not more than micros, especially with your level of lighting and CO2.

[Blossom112]

I use tank water as it says on the bottle ..then add 2 drops .
red sea CO2 says to use tank water

i dose with this
http://www.hydrotechhydroponics.com/sandbox/index.php/Six-Pack-Fertilizers/Trace-Elements-100g/flypage.tpl.html

[Riiz]

I use tank water as it says on the bottle ..then add 2 drops .
red sea CO2 says to use tank water

i dose with this
http://www.hydrotechhydroponics.com/sandbox/index.php/Six-Pack-Fertilizers/Trace-Elements-100g/flypage.tpl.html

Thats what I thought, tank water is the problem. By using tank water, instead of a known 4KdH fluid, your readings are wrong. Tank water has many buffers in it, preventing the change to green when you're at proper CO2 concentrations. Thus your Pleco is suffering first, due to the fact that he needs higher oxygen levels than your other fish and at the bottom of the aquarium where oxygen is lower to begin with.

This is the 4kDh fluid I was talking about, plus its an excellent source of nutrients too. http://www.greenleafaquariums.com/co2-drop-checkers/kh-standard.html

And your hypronic mix, looks good, but its only a micronutrient mix. You will need a macro nutrients soon, because once your plants use up their reserves, algae will most likely start to take over from that point.

If you have time, read the stickies, they have proper nutrient plans and links to e-stores to purchase said macros.

[KarlTh]

Mind you, most tank water contains organic acids rather than extra buffers, so tends to read a lower pH (and therefore overestimates CO2). The overall picture on the thread seems to be of a tank without enough CO2 (slow bubble rate, plants not pearling).

Given that, I'd imagine we're looking at a low O2 problem rather than a high CO2 one.

[Blossom112]

why do they say use thank water then ???
Well cripes ......
ok im gonna turn up my CO2 more today ....the plecs were fine yesterday so ill try more .
I like my dosing so think im going to stick with it ...
as the person b4 me had no problems at all ...i baught it complete .
Thanks i shall go grab some of that .
tyvm

[Riiz]

why do they say use thank water then ???
Well cripes ......
ok im gonna turn up my CO2 more today ....the plecs were fine yesterday so ill try more .
I like my dosing so think im going to stick with it ...
as the person b4 me had no problems at all ...i baught it complete .
Thanks i shall go grab some of that .
tyvm

I have no idea why Red Sea puts that horrible piece of info in the instructions, its just as bad as the ebay drop checkers, they state to use distilled, which does nothing either.

[Blossom112]

cant get to store today ... bad weather .
so i have turned it up and see how the plecs are and try and get that stuff tomorrow 4 sure .
you think they would even sell it together its crazy ......
im doing it slowly so today we are at 1 drops per sec see and maybe get it up more tomorrow .
tyvm .... see something i wouldnd have had a clue on !