i'm thinking about gettin diy co2 and i was wondering what the effect of it was on my water chemistry, namely pH gH and kH, the last two i have no idea what they are. my pH is at around 6.4, what should i do to keep it from fluctuating when i use co2? will my pH fluctuate whenever I add a fresh new mixture?
co2 and water chemistry
- Thread starter son2fu
- Start date
CO2 is added for only one reason: to increase plant growth, so to fertilize the plant. This increases growth rates about 10X.
Adding it will lower pH. But that is not the same as pH lowered by peat, or by reducing KH, these are total different and way too many folks, even ones that have kept plants for awhile mix up and confuse.
Adding CO2 and dropping or raising pH say 1 full unit in a few minutes has no discernable impact on fish health etc. Folks do this every week when they do a large water change on their CO2 enriched tanks with tap which has about 1 full unit higher in most cases that of the tank with the CO2.
We'd have lots of dead fish if that was issues:idea:
Repeat that with baking soda to raise the pH up one full unit= dead fish.
CO2 is not a salt, it's just a gas like O2.
Adding CO2 has no impact on GH other than being nutrients for plants and the plants tasking up the Ca and Mg for growth 10x faster than normal.
DIY cO2 can be an issue getting stable levels, I have a small DIY reactor that should make your CO2 work well. Depends on your tank size though but is self leveling and one CO2 DIY yeast bottle per 20 gal works out just right.
Even at high light.
There are many sites addressing DIY CO2 doa google search.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Adding it will lower pH. But that is not the same as pH lowered by peat, or by reducing KH, these are total different and way too many folks, even ones that have kept plants for awhile mix up and confuse.
Adding CO2 and dropping or raising pH say 1 full unit in a few minutes has no discernable impact on fish health etc. Folks do this every week when they do a large water change on their CO2 enriched tanks with tap which has about 1 full unit higher in most cases that of the tank with the CO2.
We'd have lots of dead fish if that was issues:idea:
Repeat that with baking soda to raise the pH up one full unit= dead fish.
CO2 is not a salt, it's just a gas like O2.
Adding CO2 has no impact on GH other than being nutrients for plants and the plants tasking up the Ca and Mg for growth 10x faster than normal.
DIY cO2 can be an issue getting stable levels, I have a small DIY reactor that should make your CO2 work well. Depends on your tank size though but is self leveling and one CO2 DIY yeast bottle per 20 gal works out just right.
Even at high light.
There are many sites addressing DIY CO2 doa google search.
Regards,
Tom Barr
so no harmful effects? i dont need to add like crushed coral or anything? my ph is at 6.4 so i doubt i have a good water buffer. in all the articles i've read, it says that you need a fairly hard water so that it can resist the pH change that might occur when dosing co2, are they wrong?
Yep.
It would help if they actually tested the advice they offer............:idea:
You can have lower pH's and still have a significant KH BTW..........
But pH in and of itself will not do any harm if solely due to CO2.
Absent KH will make the measure of the tank's KH and the pH impossible to determine what the CO2ppms are.
But the fish are not bothered by pH change due to variation in the CO2 near as anyone can tell and certainly no one has ever shown that after decades of water changes..............
Simple test, anyone can do it, then you question things, just because it's written does not in anyway imply it's correct.
I think why many started carrying on about this dogma/myth was due to adding too much CO2 or raising the pH or dropping it due to other things not related to CO2 gas injection.
There is no such things as a "pH crash", often spoken of....... yet never tested by those suggesting.......
If you add too much CO2, that will gas the fish but that's got nothing to do with pH. It has to do with too much CO2 so the fish gills cannot exchange CO2/O2, you cannot breath as well in high CO2 either, but if we added more O2 and only added CO2 when the plants took a lot of it up at the same time and added more O2, then it is not as bad.
I just think so many folks from other areas of the fish hobby decided to take some of that advice and broadly apply it to everything and all cases, you cannot do that.
You need to test it and see otherwise you do not know.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Regards,
Tom Barr
wow, i love the way you think, personally, i think that some things that are recommended to do are kinda obsessive.
how would i measure co2 if you can't do so by measuring ph and kH?
just curious because all websites that i've been on say that pH and all that are affected by injection of co2, can i ask you where you got your info?
how would i measure co2 if you can't do so by measuring ph and kH?
just curious because all websites that i've been on say that pH and all that are affected by injection of co2, can i ask you where you got your info?
Plecosterone
We don't need no stinking badges!
You can check out Tom's site at www.BarrReport.com. That should answer where he got his info. Tom is one of the most recognized plant gurus on the web. I don't know him personally, but by just reading information he has posted has taught myself and thousands of others a lot about the science of aquatic plants. One of the tanks he has done can be found here http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82281
pH is affected by the injection of CO2. You inject CO2 and the pH will go down.
But pH changes caused by CO2 do not harm fish.
But pH changes caused by CO2 do not harm fish.
pH is affected by CO2.
But it's not important other than if you use it to measure CO2 ppms.
Most these days have moved to using a KH reference solution and drop checker.
I use a KH reference solution and membrane and pH meter.
Or, I use the plants.
Regards,
Tom Barr