New to CO2

[Vampiero]

Hello,
ATM i am cycling up a 60g tank that later will have a mated pair of Discus, Angelfish, and about a dozen Cardinal tetras.
But I am new to CO2 and i have done some research online bout how the process works and I had a couple questions:

-Because I am gonna have Discus I will need to do frequent water changes and I dont want to shock the fish/plants with a PH spike everytime I siphon water back into the tank and have to add PH buffers to spike it back down. So Im looking for some kinda of CO2 diffuser which has a PH monitor that I can set at a desired PH and the diffuser will automatically adjust the amount of CO2 to fit the desired PH. That would save me a ton of trouble. Do you guys know of anysystems that are on the cheaper side, maybe even around 100 bucks.
-And i have heard of people turning of the Co2 diffuser at night? Why? Is this necessary or can I leave it on so that the PH doesnt spike?

 

[froglover007]

bump for you

 

[mott]

You should worry more about temp and TDS rather than PH, fish can handle a wide swing PH, it happens in the wild often.

 

[Jaykit]

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3747+9933&pcatid=9933

This is for a large system, or so it says, but pretty much the system you are talking about. You are looking for the ph controller which attaches to the solenoid valve which turns on or off the system.

 

[Vampiero]

yeah I saw that one, sadly its about 3-4x more than i can spend. but tell me why do people shut off the CO2 at night instead of keeping a consistent level?

 

[Linda S]

during the day plants use co2 and produce o2. At night plants use o2 and release co2 back into the water. co2 can build up and harm your fish.

 

[coach_z]

during the day plants use co2 and produce o2. At night plants use o2 and release co2 back into the water. co2 can build up and harm your fish.

i agree^^^

co2 system with ph controller for less than a hundred bucks is going to be difficult to do. check out the milwaukee stuff on water-testers.com also scour ebay craigslist, classified ads etcetc..

 

[Riiz]

yeah I saw that one, sadly its about 3-4x more than i can spend. but tell me why do people shut off the CO2 at night instead of keeping a consistent level?

I shut mine off to extend my time between refills and to make sure I'm not gonna kill my fish due to CO2 poisoning. The pH swings do not bother fish, because the TDS (total dissolved solids) and/or gh/kh does not swing rapidly.

 

[jpappy789]

:iagree:

Fish can generally handle a swing between 6 and 9 without problems.