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I just have this dumb luck or something. I wanted to try a carboplus system but the reviews weren't good enough for the price. Then it turns out a friend of mine tried one once and decided to go with a different system. Didn't like the way it lowered his kh. So I've been running it for 3days now on setting 4 of 10 for 8hrs a day with my brightest lights. It lowers my kh to 5 by evening which goes back up to 14 by the next morning. Anyone have an idea why it does this and since the ph hasn't changed it won't effect my fish right? I'm gonna try plugging it into the other set of lights and have it on 12hrs a day and see how the tank tests.

2nd I got a 220w 4 bulb power compact strip for less than the 4 bulbs in it cost. 2 10,000k and 2 actinic. Is that actually too much light on my 55g? Current light is 40w actinic, 120w aquaglo bulbs. What bulb combination would work best? or should I just mix and match untill I find what works best? My sword plant has turned into 3 amazon swords. The various wendtii crypts have over taken half the tank. I'm having to pull out apongeton weekly. The only things I can't get to grow are my dwarf hairgrass and the microswords that keep floating off.

for the lighting, am i adding that correctly that you have 160W of lighting?? that would be slightly over 3wpg then for your 55g tank. that should be more than enough for almost any plants you would want to grow, provided you supplement them with some kind of co2 system

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

Sham, You should not turn it off. It is going to effect your PH.

More expensive systems do turn themselves off, but only for brief amounts of time.

This is how they controll the ph level in the tank. They are set to a desired setting, and use a PH probe to know when it needs to be turned off.



Last edited by Shannen at 09-Feb-2005 10:00

The book said to plug it into my light timer to turn off at night. Running a carboplus 24hrs a day is gonna make that expensive block run out twice as fast and depending how long it lasts in my tank it may not be cost effective to use it at all. Also I said my ph hasn't changed. I'm not running enough co2 in yet to see a change in ph. If I decide to put in enough co2 to drop my ph then I'll leave it on all night. Since my kh does not remain at 14 I can't really tell how much co2 is in the water.

Right now I have to move all my light strips to get into my tank so a compact that doesn't cover the lids would be nice. I guess I didn't figure what the watts per gallon is. It just looked like alot of light to me. Current lights are just under 3wpg and the compact strip would be 4wpg.

Sham, If it isn't giveing off enough gas to lower your PH then it prob isn't giving you enough to be of any use.

I can't rember the exact amount needed. I'm sure Frank will enlighten us when he reads this.

A DIY unit might be the way you want to go.

your kh should not be fluctuating like that at all. if you are getting these readings like that then maybe you should have your water tested at your lfs. bring in a sample from each time period that you notice these changes and see if their results match yours. kh should be a relatively constant thing with your water. you can check this chart against your kh readings once your co2 gets going. but if your kh is truly 14 you will have to pump a lot of co2 into your tank to get it to drop very far. on the other hand, you only need a ph of about 7.2 to have a decent concentration of co2 in the water. also, a diy system will be ineffective on a tank bigger than 30g. since you're talking about your 55g, i wouldn't recommend trying a diy system

edit: do you have a link for the carboplus system?? the only thing i can find about it is that it uses electrolysis to introduce co2

Last edited by moondog at 09-Feb-2005 14:36

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

http://www.belowwater.com/products/carbo-plus/That's one of the most informative links I know of. There are a few people that think it takes apart calcium carbonate to make co2 but the instructions with it clearly show pictures with it breaking apart h20 and combining with the carbon block to make co2 and h2. Noone seems able to figure out why it lowers kh. My kh goes right back up when I turn off the unit so I don't think any of it is being used up. Since with the changing kh I don't think I can measure co2 level by ph alone I don't want to just turn the level up till my ph starts to drop. No telling how much co2 there is then. I've been turning it up 1 setting every other day or so. I do want to make sure a changing kh without a change in ph isn't harmful to the fish.


Last edited by sham at 09-Feb-2005 16:23

There really are no sites that do much more than say it creates co2... I don't have the links to the discussions on various boards I read. From the paper that came with it: Each LED is 10% output. Max co2 per hour .29g. 420g in 2months. Carbon plate will last 2months in 240l aquarium on max. Ideally control the carbo plus using a timer (switched off at night).

so you put the one piece inside the tank while the other piece stays outside? does the piece inside the tank bubble at all? i.e. - how do you know it's working at all? i don't see how it's possible for your kh to fluctuate like that. i would think it would stay down once you turn the thing off.

one more thing: where does all that H2 go after the reaction? last i checked hydrogen is a very flammable gas

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

The carbon block suction cups in the tank. The controller sits outside with a dial and led display. H2 gas is extremely light and dissipates quickly. It doesn't dissolve well in water and it says it is nearly impossible to collect a large enough amount to do any harm. The bubbles coming off this thing are extremely tiny. It's just a fine mist that spreads through the tank. From a few feet away I can't even see the bubbles except the stream coming off the carbon block. Up close the whole tank is filled with little floating bubbles.

and you say your ph hasn't dropped at all? i just read through the whole article on that site you linked, and it says on a 65g tank running 24/7 the carbon block lasts 6-8 weeks, longer if you don't run it at night. i've had my co2 system running on my 50g 24/7 for over 6 months and i haven't even come close to running out of co2 yet.

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i'm sure your system works fine, but i'm just saying that their claims that you will run out of co2 so quickly is false. my vet has a 20lb bottle on his 200g tank (with ph meters and such) and he said he refills maybe once a year or so. i think maybe you should run yours for 24 hours and check your water params and then decide if you want to back it off or not. you might run out of the carbon block faster, but you need to know if this thing is working right?[/font]

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

Sham,

Go to this link to find a table that will give you the approximate CO2 values for your Ph and KH. http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

Since I do not remember a pH value for your tank, I will make an assumption that your pH is 7.8. Without Carboplus, your KH is 14, a value that gives you dissolved CO2 of 7.1 ppm. When Carboplus runs your KH slides to 5 with no change in pH indicating that CO2 has now declined to 2.4 ppm! Strikes me that something is wrong with your measurements... or Carboplus is eating your CO2! (Or your pH kit is bad!)

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

i was shown [link=this article]http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.200107/msg00419.html" style="COLOR: #ff0044[/link] which kind of explains what the carboplus is trying to do. it's an interesting read, but i am still skeptical about its effectiveness in producing co2. according to the article, only 1/3 of the bubbles coming out of your block are co2. this is probably why you're not seeing an appreciable drop in ph. i still think you should turn it on for 24+ hours to see if your ph is affected. if it is, then you know it's working. if it's not, then you should check into getting a more reliable system for putting co2 into your tank

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

While I do disagree with the belowwater site saying it's less expensive and so forth than other setups it does seem to be doing something. My plants are all growing. The anubias has 10 new leaves now. The hairgrass has actually grown instead of slowly getting smaller. The only that has changed is adding the carboplus. I don't have a place to put a large co2 system not even a diy pop bottle setup. My 55g is sitting on the floor in my room right now. Unless I put a co2 system on the other side of the room (where?) or under the bed.. it just isn't gonna fit. It will block 1 door or the other. So if carboplus works, i dont have to fill co2 tanks, I don't have to fit a co2 system aside from 1 controller that sits on the lights right now, and I found a place to get blocks for $28. I'm going to continue to turn it up untill I get a ph change. I have it on 5 now running 12hrs a day. I'll try 24hrs starting tomorrow then turn it up to 6 if I get no change.

alright, keep us posted on how it's going. it must do what it says, or else i would think that they wouldn't be selling them anymore anubias is a pretty hardy plant, they would probably grow with extremely low light, but having hairgrass growing is definitely a good sign that things could be working.

and yes, you probably *could* put a co2 tank under your bed if you wanted to just don't step on the hoses

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