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114w lighting on a 63g tank? that's less than 2wpg? some of your plants will be fine on that, but i see an amazon sword in the back? it might not like 2wpg unless your co2 is doing its job. so far it sounds like your plants are responding, but it would be nice to know exactly how much co2 you have in your water. i know they make test kits for that but i've never seen one at any lfs i go to. maybe yours can test it for you?

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

there should only be ONE fitting for co2 available in a regulator. if you have several choices, then there is a misunderstanding somewhere. you will need a pressurized co2 bottle, a regulator, a needle valve of some kind and tubing rated for co2. i found a regulator with a built-in needle valve for $50 (us) at a local store. just shop around at welding supply stores and see if you also have a few businesses which deal with pressurized gas. otherwise you can find the parts you need online.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

So I suppose, you purchasing her a Co2 tank would not win you any favours.

As much as she likes the aquarium and such, I somehow think she wouldn't quite appreciate it, I just have to come up with something else... I still have one week for that

As for the pressurized CO2, I will probably make the switch sometime this year. The yeast seems to work, at least so far, but it is indeed slightly messy and I don't like the fact that I don't have any control over the CO2 output. The only thing that I'm still a bit worried about is that if I buy the stuff in parts, how will I be sure that it all fits together? There are so many different kinds of regulators that should fit on a gas tank, how will I know which one to get? Besides that there's quite a lot of price difference between them, I guess they have different functions but at the moment I just don't know. Any suggestions or links to information pages? they would be appreciated.

Martin

My wife's birthday is coming up, and I need to get her something real nice

So I suppose, you purchasing her a Co2 tank would not win you any favours.

Aquariums cost more than the Co2 setup when completed. And you can buy it in pieces and activate it when you are ready.

I took me 3 months to get all the proper parts (only to find them locally and cheaper) together for my tank.

Gary

I will probably do that, just at this point I do not have the money to get all that stuff. My wife's birthday is coming up, and I need to get her something real nice, so until that has come and gone I don't have a real clue how much I have to spend

My Amazon Sword rocked and rolled @1.5WPG! Sometimes, plants will surprise you.

DIY Co2 in big tanks turns into a big expense and big mess. Not only that, the smell of the fermenting yeast in so many bottles.

Trying to balance your Co2, pH level (Co2 will drop it) will swing dramatically and you'll crash your tank's system in a couple of months.

Go pressurized, in the long run it is much cheaper. The initial cost (tanks are twice as expensive...) is large but you save money, time and losses in the long run.

Gary

What are the dangers of using pressurized CO2?

well, it sounds like your tank is doing well enough. i know none of my amazon swords have ever done as well with no co2 as they have *with* co2. and i also had to get my lighting up to 3wpg before they would even grow bigger than 3" tall maybe you could call whoever supplies your water and see if they can tell you if there is a co2 concetration in your water instead of taking it in to be tested? although i suppose an easy test would be to leave it sitting in a glass overnight and see if your ph changes but as long as your plants are doing fine, i would say you should probably not worry about the co2 too much for now.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

It may be less than 2 wpg, but I also have good reflectors installed that supposedly double the amount of light that goes down into the tank. I will be installing another lamp in about a month or so, but that is pretty much the max amount this tank can handle. There simply will be no more room for any other lamp. All plants are growing so I'm not really worrying about the wpg-rule, that is just a general guideline anyway and not some law that is always correct.

As for the CO2 measurements, I have no idea, I saw some Tetra test kit at my LFS today, but it was $ 24,- and I didn't feel like spending that much on something that I wasn't even sure of whether it gives any good info or not. Taking water to the LFS and have it tested is an option, though it takes half an hour to get there, and I imagine that quite a bit of the CO2 might get lost in that period.


edit: btw that sword grows really nice, usually makes 2 leafs or so per week


[span class="edited"][Edited by Bonke 2004-08-14 16:44][/span]

Hey everyone,

I have a question about the DIY system. I've now seen a couple of posts claiming that the DIY systme is ok for tanks smaller than 30 g, and that for bigger tanks you need a pressurized CO2 bottle. My tank is about 63 g, so twice the size that a DIY system would be able to supply. I've been looking at the pressurized systems, but it seems horribly expensive, just a regulator for the bottle is about $ 100,= or more and then the bottles themselves are insanely priced as well. So I was wondering, if a single DIY CO2 system is good for a 30 g, then if I install 2 bottles I'd have enough for 60 g right? I'm sure my thinking must be flawed or otherwise everyone with bigger tanks would be doing this, but can someone explain why it would be wrong, because I don't see it.

Many thanks in advance,
Martin

a photo I just took 15 minutes ago:
Bonke attached this image:
[img]http://www.fishprofiles.net/attachments/415177.jpg"]

I'm currently using 2 DIY bottles for CO2 production, which have been up and running for about a week now with a proper CO2 reactor (to mix the CO2 into the water). The water here in Finland is naturally a bit acidic and very soft, with the pH around 6.8 and kH between 3-6 degrees. Since last wednesday I have 114 watts of Sylvania Glolux TL lights (was 76 before). The tank is 20" high, 4 ft long, 63 g minus background (internal), substrate and wood, and has been heavily planted ever since I set it up about 4 months ago.

Here is a recent photo (3 days ago, just after I installed the new lamp), the water still is slightly cloudy, but seems to be clearing up now.



I've been strugghling a bit with staghorn algea over the past 2 months but seem to be winning the battle now that the CO2 is up and running, the plants are now pearling nicely in the afternoon and evening and the new parts lok nice and colorful. I just want to know how much CO2 I should be adding to get the best growth of my plants in order to avoid getting more algae. The cloudiness you see in the photo I think is a remnant of an algae bloom I started right after trying to counter the staghorn algae by adding Nitrate, since then there is the cloudiness in the water. [/font]

is your ph naturally 6.6 or are you already using co2? having a natural ph of 6.6 doesn't necessarily mean you have a concentration of co2 in the water, although *something* is making your ph lower than 7.0

anyway, think of kh as a buffer against sudden ph fluctuations. the higher your kh, the harder you'll have to work to get a co2 concentration that will benefit your plants. if your ph is already 6.6 without co2, then you'll probably end up lowering it even more than it already is in order to reach a level that your plants prefer. do you have plants already, or is this something you have planned for the future? also, what kind of lighting do you have right now?

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

Ok, so basically it is possible to use DIY bottles for larger tanks as well, but it doesn't work as nice. This will get me to a second question: how exactly do you know how much CO2 you need to add? I have downloaded "Chuck's planted tank calulator" and as far as I understand from that the amount of necessary CO2 is related to pH and KH? How does that work exactly? I'm new to the CO2 thingie and would like to know a bit more about the way this thing works. For instance, I measured my pH to be about 6.6 and the KH is about 4. This gives me according to the calculator 30 ppm of CO2 and this is rated high. Does that mean I have too much CO2? It would be great if someone could explain this in a bit more detail or point me to a link where is explained better than just a chart.

you *could* use bottles bigger than 2L, but the point i was trying to make is that you will end up needing A LOT of bottles for a tank to keep the ph stable enough to make a difference. and even though you will be spending very little per diy bottle, the pressurized method is much more stable, reliable and cheaper in the long run.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

why not use bigger bottles than 2 liters.

i tried doing my own co2 system for my 50g, and i ended up needing FOUR 2L bottles and they would be used up in about a week. not to mention that my ph went from 7.6 to 7.2 using this method for almost 2 months. as expensive as the pressurized co2 setup is, it's only an initial cost. the diy method, if it works for you, will end up being more costly in the long run.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman