75 gallon Planted Office Tank Journal

[plantbrain]

Does having the CO2 off at night rise the ph by morning? Or does it take a lot more time for that reaction to happen?

Yes, the pH should rise. Maybe 1 full unit.
It also rises if you do say a 50-80% water change inside a few minutes, and yet fish and plants are fine, week after week after week, years after year,.........

But........a good effective CO2 diffusion method will knock the pH back down in 30-45 minutes, or add 30-40ppm in this same time frame.
If you cannot get it down this fast, then you need a better CO2 diffuser and better mixing, flow through the system.

pH does not matter much here.
Co2 does.

Also, pH change is not bad/problematic, since it's not due to salts, TDS, KH etc......CO2 is not a dissolved solid nor a salt. KH/baking soda is, so if you changed the pH 1 full unit using baking soda, you better believe this will cause issues. CO2 is very different.

Most advice on pH does not factor this CO2 enrichment into things.
So the advice is not applicable to CO2 enrichment methods about pH.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[bored4]

Thanks, My question was more concerned with fish than plants. But i understand now that is not the change in ph that causes harm to fish, it's more about changes in TDS that cause osmotic shock. Because in nature your not going to have changes in ph from CO2 injection but from changes in TDS.

Yes, the pH should rise. Maybe 1 full unit.
It also rises if you do say a 50-80% water change inside a few minutes, and yet fish and plants are fine, week after week after week, years after year,.........

Also, pH change is not bad/problematic, since it's not due to salts, TDS, KH etc......CO2 is not a dissolved solid nor a salt. KH/baking soda is, so if you changed the pH 1 full unit using baking soda, you better believe this will cause issues. CO2 is very different.

Most advice on pH does not factor this CO2 enrichment into things.
So the advice is not applicable to CO2 enrichment methods about pH.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[geekpryde]

Well, there's some trade offs. They are cool to look at and watch. they [get] clogged, but if you take Tilex, and spray them good say 2-3 week intervals, they run nice and consistent.

Reactors are nice because they require little maintenance. Same for needle wheel, and they cost less as well, some do not like the mist floating around.

So there's trade offs for each method.

They all work.

I use needle wheel, venturi feed, and needle wheel on my tanks depending on which one.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I still can't decide, but at least I know now that there is not one perfect solution. I will probably buy the reactor, since I wont have to clean it, and I already told my boss I need another $100.00 smacks. If I were doing this myself I would try the glass, or the DIY method(s).

Again, thanks for the extra effort is helping me get things right in this thread.

 

[geekpryde]

Looks like it is coming along nicely! I am planning to replace my planted 55g with a 75g soon (hopefully).

One thing I want to mention, if the light you have is the Catalina 3x54 T5HO then you would be running very high light with all 3 bulbs (about 165 micromols of PAR according to Hoppy's graph on TPT) and 2 bulbs gives you high light and 1 bulb medium light (if I read it correctly). Here is the link to that thread: PAR graph

Be sure to keep the updates coming! :thm:

Thanks for the kind words. Good luck with your tanks, these little projects take alot of time and money. :hypnotized:

In regards to the light, that is exactly the light I am using. I have 2x6500k and 1x plant grow bulb. I wil need to look into this PAR thing, as the only method I am using now says I have med-low light, although I know (and knew when I bought it), that WPG is not a perfect indicator. It is, however, a easy *lazy* indicator, so people use it.

One of the reason I like this light was (1) cheap (2) good quality (3) I cant control on/off for 1,2,or 3 bulbs, just as you have said.

My plan now it to run all 3, once the tank is fully stocked of plants, but maybe that will change are I read about PAR.

 

[PAL]

For CO2, you can also run an inline reactor with your canister filter and it works great.

 

[geekpryde]

For CO2, you can also run an inline reactor with your canister filter and it works great.

Yeah, that's one of the options I am debating. But Mr. Barr said the downside to this is when the filter clogs, your co2 clogs, and vice-versa.

I cant really imagine my filter clogging though, does that happen (often)?

 

[geekpryde]

Tom Barr mentioned it above. Perhaps one of the most reliable ways to get CO2 diffused into your tank is using a small power head and running the airline into the input of the power head. Not only does it create a fine mist of micro CO2 bubbles, but it also disperses them throughout the tank so you get a good mixture of CO2 throughout the tank. It may be a bit unsightly at first, but once your plants grow in, like Tom mentioned, it really isn't too bad. I'm not aware of anything that does a better job dispersing CO2 except for perhaps the DIY reactors like this one http://www.rexgrigg.com/diy-reactor.htm or the venturi model Tom Barr made. I think I bought my power head off ebay for less than $20 shipped. The advantage of having a DIY reactor over the power head is that with the power head you tend to have a lot of micro bubbles in the tank, depending of coarse on how much CO2 you need, but it doesn't really bother me. The micro bubbles disappear pretty quickly.

I wonder if I can jam my co2 line into the underside of my Koralia, I guess it's worth a try.

 

[geekpryde]

Here are some new pics, while we all wait for my plants to show up....

I labeled the wires, so I can plug/unplug stuff quickly. Kinda messy down there...

Here are my T5HO bulbs reflected in the water, so you can clearly see my 2x 6500K and 1x plant grow (pink).

A pic of one of my cherry barbs, with only the middle part of the fish in focus...

This is a little better:

Here is the infiltrator (obviously not a cherry barb, thanks LFS)

Side shot, toward the back of tank. See all those scratch marks, must have been from a fish/cat household? :22_yikes:

 

[geekpryde]

:topic: :topic:


Can someone help me with a UCP question, which is to add a link to my signature here at AC?

I want to link to my Tank Log, but I dont want to have the whole darn URL listed, I just want to do a normal link, with a simple human readable like "my tank log", which is a hyperlink. I cant seem to do it.

Yes, I am the "IT" director at my company, and yes, this question makes me feel like an idiot, thanks. :swear:

Come to my rescue, AC gods. :worthy:

p.s. My permissions say "HTML" no, but yes to everything else...

 

[moi-eater]

Type in what you want to call it like "Tank log" then highlight it and click 'Insert link' then paste your URL in the popup dialog. It will make your typed in text a link to that URL.

oops that is just for a reg link...checking on sig

yep works the same way for sig