Plant/Light/CO2 expert please.

[tanker]

What I have:
100gal tank. About 25+ large sword plant (9 different kinds), lots of dwarf swords (tenellus), lots of dwarf sag, lots of crypts, some stem plants. All doing very well.

CO2 tank--on 1/2 hour after lights come on, off 1/2 hour before lights go off.

516watts of light. On from 8am to 5pm. I dose K, N and trace (all from Kent). I add root tabs about once every 8+ months.

I must prune almost a pound of leaves, plants, ect every week.

Question-- If I lower my lights to 288 watts do I still need CO2?? How low must I go before having to turn off CO2??

 

[John N.]

It doesn't hurt to have co2. If you want to try to reduce the growth. Try lowering the lighting period first before you shock the plants with instant darkness. This might get you the growth amount you want without reducing the lights. I would still pump in co2, and gradually lower until the growth is stable for you.

-John N.

 

[plantbrain]

What I have:
100gal tank. About 25+ large sword plant (9 different kinds), lots of dwarf swords (tenellus), lots of dwarf sag, lots of crypts, some stem plants. All doing very well.

CO2 tank--on 1/2 hour after lights come on, off 1/2 hour before lights go off.

516watts of light. On from 8am to 5pm. I dose K, N and trace (all from Kent). I add root tabs about once every 8+ months.

I must prune almost a pound of leaves, plants, ect every week.

Question-- If I lower my lights to 288 watts do I still need CO2?? How low must I go before having to turn off CO2??

I'm not sure you come to the SFBAAPS meetings, we have an open house plant swap this 2/17 coming up, there are no membership dues. Plant swaps are free exchanges, but you do not have to bring plants, we have historically had a rough time getting rid of plants. And we have species only seen in pictures.

www.sfbaaps.com

Place the CO2 on the same timer as the lights are on.
Come to the meeting and you can get plenty of free/near free ferts like KNO3, KH2PO4, traces.

The cost are about 10-200x less than the Kent stuff.

Yes, at lower light, you will have very good results using CO2.
As you add more light, the CO2 demand increases and you need to compensate by adding more CO2.

Here's Buon's tank 4 weeks after I redid it at a club meeting and gave him a very simple dosing routine:

Note, he does not need to do much pruning and there is nothing add to the white sand substrate, it's just plain old sand.


Regards,
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com