More CO2 Questions

C

clayt101

Registered Abuser
May 4, 2001
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Baton Rouge, Louisiana
www.waterhyacinths.com
My Set up:
125 gallon, pH of 8
I add about 1/2 table spoon of KNO3 for nitates and phosphates
3+ Watts/Gallon

I am still tweaking my CO2 injector and am having some issues. In a previous thread, I mentioned that I came home one day to find my discus on their sides trying to get air...the valve on my CO2 injector let a whole bunch of CO2 in at one time.

I am having a great deal of trouble getting my bubble counter to be consistant. Once the CO2 fills the tubing and gets to the glass diffuser in the aquarium and starts releasing into the aquarium, the loss of pressure in the tubing allows more a much greater amount of CO2 out (the bubble count goes up). I only use CO2 during the day, so there are large pressure differences in the tubing.

I think my solution will be to run the CO2 constantly at 1 bubble per second, no on/off means no pressure changes in the tubing. In addition, I bought a pH monitor (Milwaukee SMS122) just in case it "goes crazy" again.

If the pH is 8, what would you recommend for the shut off pH level? Any other comments in general? I am not worried about the fish not getting O2 because I put in an air stone on the far side of the aquarium (I know this goes against the CO2 injection, but I want to be very cautious).

Thanks,
Clay
 
You have a janky needle valve. Your bubble counter works fine, don't mess with it. Either get a screwed on needle valve (10-32 I believe), or an in-line needle valve. Rex Grigg can point you in the right direction (www.rexgrigg.com) althought they should be Clippard parts and can be found at www.clippard.com.

I'd drop the pH maybe 0.5 points at first and see if you can keep it constant at that level. And if your discus seem fine, drop it another ~0.5 points for a full drop of 1 point.

BTW, what kind of lighting do you have over 125 gallons?! 3 WPG over that is way overkill IMO. ~2-2.2 should be plenty over anything 100+ gallons.
 
You might want to run the lights with a staggered lighting period.

Depending on how the ballasts are hooked up to the bulbs, you could have ~2 WPG for most of the day with a 3 - 4 hour midday burst of 3 WPG. Much easier to control the algae and get the tank balanced.
 
This is the regulator that I have:
ma975.jpg


Milwaukee MA957

I have about 8 feet of CO2 Tubing between the regulator and the diffusion point.

Yeah, I meant potassium instead of phoshourous, not too good with chemistry.

Thanks and welcome to the forum,
Clay
 
WELCOME REX!! I lurk and read your stuff at apc and ptf. I have learned a lot just reading your stuff. It is good to have you here! You will be an assett to have here!

To all: definitely check out rex's site... it has lots of great info!
 
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