CO2 Magic!

[The_Nexis_One]

Originally posted by Samala
You can tell that I need a better N dosing system as the prolifera is living up to its use in this tank as a canary and is starting to show some transparent dead frond sections (pretty obvious in the ovalis shot).

eek... that's exactly what my prolifera did. I had a feeling it was Nitrate related though as it stopped and growth returned after bumping up the dosage from the CO2 growth. I'm amazed to see how much growth takes place at night as well - guess I never thought about plants/macro's growing in the dark...

Originally posted by Samala

As for Halymenia, sounds like it is going back to its initial type in your tank, the darker light morphology is just as you describe, long curls, deep red color.. whereas I'm finding in bright light it throws out that salmon/orangey color and fills with little spikes all over the frond. If this is the stuff I sent to you then its definitely environment related and not, instead, a different species. (But I cant remember if I sent it to you or not.. lol.. getting old.) I'd think light over any other factors since you are now doing N / Fe / CO2 dosing like I have been.

ah - yes, it's the one you sent me. The odd part is that it's in a lot of light. Almost the same quantity as the Turtle grass, and turtle is growing in my tank. From this I assumed that while we have the same amount of light, mine is much closer to the DSB/plants than yours. I will have to post up some pictures soon before the SFE polishes off all my crabs/shrimp (yeah, they came in, are very cool... and apperantly taste REALLY good as the eel is hunting them with a vengence. I was trying to keep them a live so I was blocking his path, I had even fed him just prior to putting them in the system - he STILL was pushing me out of the way to get near the crabs...) They make a really neat look to the lagoon, so I hope some wise up and keep away from his tunnels.

I'll move part of the Halomynia under direct light and another portion into less light (leaving the remaining 1/2 where it has been happily growing) and hopefully we can get some tracking on the color changes.

John.

[Plantbrain]

John, there's a very simple way , method I showed folks in the FW planted hobby that works here also.

The trade off is 50% weekly water changes. Not a bad thing with FW, but with smaller Marine it's not bad and worked better than all the testing/$$$ test kits you can throw at it.

It does not require 50% weekly, that's just a nice simple amount and will provide highly stable conditions.

Basically you add nuttrients all week, that prevents anything from running out, then you do 50% weekly water changes to prevent any build up. In this way you maintain and nice stable range of all nutrients.

Even if you assumed an uptake of =0.00ppm, the max build up is 2x the total ppm added for the week with 50% weekly WC's.

See my web site and EI.

You can use dosing calculators to know how much ppms you add to a tank.

I add 1/4 teaspoon to my 20 gal tank, this adds 10-11ppm of NO3.

If I want less, I add 1/8 teaspoon, I get 5-5.5 ppm of NO3 and so on..........

I did this stuff long before they had the web or dosing calculators though



Sarah- yes, tropica master grow, Marine Depot or Big Al's at a 5 liter jug for the amounts I use.

C prolifera is a tough Caulerpa.

Yes, I add CO2 to the Caulpera taxifolia we maintain here at the lab for dive training. I have not tried it on the Halimeda's etc, they tend to grow on the reefs(H opuntia) while the more aesthetically pleasing species of Halimeda grow right along side many other species, so there might be a little variation in habitat, but not much.

I've never had much trouble with Halimeda's in the past, but I've not added CO2 either.

Given their slow growth rates and CaCO3 deposition, likely due to Bicarb reduction on the surfaces, that's how they are going to add more CaCO3 as the HCO3-> CO2(internal to fixed carbon) + OH external, causes the pH to shoot up to 10.1 or so in the internal unstirred layer at the cell surface.

So I'm, not sure another pH unit will really mean that much to them.

There is no rule that we need to add 100ppm, or 20ppm, or 30 ppm etc. Just a little might do the trick without worrtying about what it might do, but I do like to push things over a wide range rather than playing it safe.

Then we know what we may or may not be missing out on.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[The_Nexis_One]

just a quick update:

Still dosing CO2 and my shoal grass and macro's are growing like crazy. So much so that even with my increased dosing of NO3, I had a crash (sporolation) with my feather caulerpa. Luckily, my feather caulerpa patch wasn't all the same rhyzome so I only lost about 70% of it. The tank was a little cloudy, but cleared by days end (after manual removal of the feather about mid way through it's release)

I'm still dosing CO2 via the return pump at about 1 bubble per 2 seconds, which holds my pH steady in the system all day long (8.17 to 8.20 usually).

My zoa's don't appear to be as happy lately exhibiting some shriveling and lack of growth. My xenia and bryarium seem to be fine with the xenia showing continued growth/spreading. The Rock anemone continues to show a basic level of dissatisfaction that it started showing with the Fe dosing.

The caulerpa racemosa and Halymenia both appear happiest right now with very fast growth in both. The Halymenia has grown to a 6" mass if held all in one place, and grows to shade more and more of it's surroundings each day.

The Turtle grass continues to look good, with new leaf production stopping when the NO3 bottomed out. Currently holding with 4 leaves, which are gaining length slowly.

I've also been concerned about my 40G breeder display as it's been sitting there with a few small fish and LR waiting for better lights and the addition of a bunch of coral. I was worried that the new corals would dislike the NO3, Fe, and CO2 dosing or levels.

..... but I've resolved these concerns.

I'm going to bump up the DSB in the display and go Marine Planted !



I'm looking to have a Turtle grass primary tank with overflow from the Lagoon as secondarys (shoal, macro's, etc.)

Then I wont have to worry about interoperability between Reef and Lagoon.... and I'm already dosing daily - so what's a little more.

Besides, I've almost outgrown the lagoon already. The seagrass, Macro's, and Mangroves, with the addition of the new molly's (3 total), the spotted scat, the fiddler crabs, Ilyanassa obsoleta, and the grass shrimp - the Lagoon looks awesome and has captivating powers on par with my157g custom at it's peak...

Thank you all for your help, direction, and encouragement!
John.

[Samala]

Wow.. I'm thrilled you'll be doing two marine planted systems! A little sad that we wont have someone trying to balance out reef plus a satellite planted tank, but, heck your contributions are great either way. I am also very happy to hear that your CO2 is remaining stable.

Now.. the fifty million dollar question is: is your water getting hazy? What I thought was just haze from a water change was actually the start of greenwater! ARGH. It is now in FULL bloom and I can hardly see my plants. I left the CO2 on at night the past week or so because I just havent had the time to really tend to the tank. (One more thing to automate.)

The copepod population has exploded. I think if I had sponge it would be in heaven. Any of those hard to keep corals that filter feed phyto/zooplankton would probably be happy too. But I'm not.

>Sarah

[CELACANTHr]

I need to find somewhere to buy some cheap nitrogen (nitrate), any suggestions?

I have run out of all of mine, and my caulerpa isn't growing!

[billsreef]

CELACANTHr,

I got both potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate from http://www.gregwatson.com/ . Prices are very good.

Sarah,

You need to get some filter feeders growing Lots of feather dusters, maybe even some clams

[The_Nexis_One]

Originally posted by Samala
Now.. the fifty million dollar question is: is your water getting hazy? ...>Sarah

not even in the slightest

Now...

1) I ONLY run CO2 during the lights on stage of my system. So from about 9am to 9:30 pm.

2) I have a metric ton of LR, so much so that to 'unload' the overflowing tanks, I setup a 'rock box' that is inline with the lagoon return. It's a clear storage box (Lowes) that I fitted with 2 bulkheads and loaded to the surface (top) with LR.... then snapped on the cover. I still have more LR in both tanks than I would like, but until I find room for another 'rock box' I'm stuck. The added LR might be consuming whatever caused your hazy water (assuming bacteria from pH upset... like in an un-airated pond).

3) I only run enough CO2 to stabilize my pH and bleed the rest off into atmosphere. It ends up being less than 1 bubble per second... probably closer to 4 per 10 seconds now since the culture is winding down (too drunk for their own good ).

4) I always approach the tank from the left while holding a 4 leaf clover.



.... ok - so the last one I made up.. but it illustrates the point that just becuase I don't have hazy/green water today - doesn't mean I wont tomorrow

I 'do' have a lot of filter feeders in my system. Sponges, verdani snails, and lots of feather dusters (lot's by my standards, but not by some of the pictures I've seen on RC ).

IMHO, you might take this opertunity to buy a clam. A mature one wont 'need' the bloom, but I'm sure it'll appreciate it just the same. Best of all, it should survive after it's gone on light alone (while I small one <2" probably wouldn't - from what I've read anyway).

If you are up for an exchange, I could probably part with some of my Ultra hardy yellow encrusting sponge... (only sponge I've met that didn't mind being kept out of water for hours on end; tolerant of both dark and direct light)

John.

[graveyardworm]

Sarah to bad with the hazy algae filled water, but I have an idea to test. In the recent Vodka thread I think it was determined that dosing Vodka would set off a bacterial growth to compete with algae for nutrients. I've read alot of threads where people spend alot of money and time trying to fix similar problems. I dont know what your plan of attack is, but perhaps Vodka dosing is the quick answer to get things back into balance? Any thoughts?

[CELACANTHr]

billsreef-What is the difference between the two?

thanks
roo

[orchidsnfish]

I haven't really been keeping up with this thread as well as I'd like to but I can say that my heavily planted 60 cube has done AWESOME since adding the CO2. I also added an airline to the mix to keep the pH up which has worked really well. The tank is so clear at this point it looks like there is not water in it. I have kept codium for a long time and have never really noticed any growth at all until now. I've also noticed pretty amazing growth from the Sargassum. It has grown at least 6" in like 3 weeks.

I just looked back a few pages to the pics I posted of the tank and it's pretty amazing how much everything has grown. The Sargassum at the top of the tank in this pic now goes about 3/4 across the surface of the tank. I will post new pics tomorrow since the lights are already out tonight.

Angela

[graveyardworm]

Your tank looks awesome, what other things are in there? Do you have any coral. Looks like possibly some gorgs?

[The_Nexis_One]

Agreed! That looks great - Good work, and congrat's on the CO2 success.


John.

[billsreef]

Originally posted by CELACANTHr
billsreef-What is the difference between the two?

thanks
roo

One has the nitrate combined with potassium. Which is something else plants need, but probably in ample abundance in SW if you keep up with your water changes. The other has the nitrate combined with calcium. Not particularly needed for the plants, but could help with maintaining the calcium levels for your corals

[Fishfreak218]

Hey Samala... hows the Halophila ovalis doing?? is it growing much??

[Samala]

Its coming along, nothing too spectacular. Some new stunted leaf growth is about it.. I'd say an additional six pairs of 1" tall leaves. Its very fragmented though.. hopefully one or two of these rhizomes will catch and start growing a bit better. Now seems to be a critical point. If the plants cant establish they'll burn through whatever stored reserves they have trying to put up new leaves.

Keep your fingers crossed!
>Sarah

[wong BANTEN]

Hi,
Can we replace the CO2 with bioavailable organic carbon?
http://www.seachem.com/products/prod...rishExcel.html

[Samala]

Seachem's Excel is only an option if you have an all-seagrass tank with no macroalgae, no coral and no other sensitive invertebrates. No one has done any bioassays to determine if there is any negative responses to Excel for coral or other invertebrates. It also seems to slow down, or outright kill, desirable macroalgaes that might be in the tank with the 'grasses.

>Sarah

[10" Red Devil]

Would co2 supplementation help Chaeto grow any faster?

Thanks.

[10" Red Devil]

Anyone? Bueler? Bueler?

[Samala]

I doubt in a refugium setup with all the circulation going on that carbon is a limiting factor in Chaetomorpha growth. If it isnt limiting its growth, adding more wont help. I'd be much more inclined to see nitrates or even phosphates as the limiting factors to better/faster growth, or even light levels.

That doesnt mean someone couldnt try it. Or, if you're growing Chaeto in an environment other than a 'fuge, its a better environment to test whether or not CO2 would assist growth rates.

>Sarah

[10" Red Devil]

Its not a refugium. Its in a seperate 20 gallon long tank.

[10" Red Devil]

Also lit by 2x 65watt lights of america model number 9266b 6500k bulb systems.

1 fish in the tank. about 8lbs of live rock.

Just trying to get it to grow a little faster. Takes about more then a month to fill the tank half way with chaeto.

Thanks.

[Samala]

Devil: Thats definitely more than enough light. If you are finding NO3 to be zero in the tank, feed more to the fish or look into dosing nitrate. Also.. a little iron dosing would probably help.

You can certainly try CO2 dosing in this separate system. Be careful with fish/invert residents so that they arent exposed to acidic water conditions. You want to keep the pH around normal range - 8.0 to 8.4 at the widest - and avoid high pH situations that often occur in an essentially planted tank.

I'm thinking nutrient dosing (N, Fe) will be more beneficial than just adding CO2.. but I could be wrong. See the top stickie "Forum favorites" for threads on nutrient dosing. I think a small soda bottle yeast reactor setup would be a good start and safe enough if you follow the ups and down in this thread. Definitely keep us updated on how it goes if you take on the project.

>Sarah

[wong BANTEN]

Add CO2 will result H2CO3?

[The_Nexis_One]

Originally posted by wong BANTEN
Add CO2 will result H2CO3?

not really.. at least not in any quantity worth noting.

CO2 disolves in water forming a loosly hydrated molecule denoted CO2(aq) which futher reacts with water to form carbonic acid... but this takes a rather long time in the sense of chemistry...

Moreover, the reaction stabilizes at an equilibrium as CO2 turns to H2CO3 and H2CO3 turns back to CO2

I've read that the amount that stays in Carbonic Acid form is approx 0.2% while the vast majority of the CO2 remains in the solvated form.

While these numbers may vary a little since we are talking SW, I doubt it's far off enough to be concerned about.

....but then again - I'm not a chemist, so take it for what it's worth.

John.