CO2 Magic!

[orchidsnfish]

Thanks for the compliment. I can already tell a difference in the tank with just 3 days of CO2. I have strange little plants popping up on the LR that I have never seen before. Some are really pretty and have a lot of potential. I have no idea what they are but they look like little green flowers. I have some caulerpa prolifera (maxima type from vera cruz in the bottom left corner in the pics) that has grown a lot in the last few days. Also have some suction cup caulerpa that hitchhiked in on tbs live rock that has taken off (mixed blessing). I just added some new macro to the tank and will be taking pics shortly. I got blue ball algae (Ochtodes), Green Gracillaria, burning bush, suction cup caulerpa, Halimeda, red Dictyota, and Sargassum.

Angela

[orchidsnfish]

Pics of the 60 cube 3 days into the CO2 experiment. Amazingly the gorgonians and zoos in the tank dont seem to mind the low pH at all. The gorgonians have better polyp extension than they have had in a long time actually. The Xenia is responding well too.





Thanks
Angela

[Plantbrain]

Originally posted by orchidsnfish
The pH was actually 7.4 not 7.2. I took the upside down reptile bowl out to let more CO2 escape to the surface so well see what happens. Here's some pics of the tank. It's still pretty new. I ordered some cool macros from inlandaquatics that will be here friday. I also took some pics to keep up with the difference the CO2 makes.

Angela

Nice tank and decent aquascaping to boot.
Nice front sand section, make sure to leave some space, you'll like it.

Add some shrimps.

FYI,

CO2 and lowering pH is not the same as pH lowered by reduced alk or other salts/ions.

It's an artifical lowering.
I'm not sure how the added CO2 will impact some corals, macros etc, it will help the plants though and non calcerous algae.

I use a skilter on smaller tanks, this adds lots of gas exchange and mist into the tank.

If you want to minimizwe the impact of low pH/high cO2 on the croitters and other plants/macros etc,

Add CO2 only during the day light cycle only!!!
Add CO2 for the first 8-10 hours.

The change in pH should less impact than a long term chronic level, the change of the pH is not the issue, the change in CO2 is.

I think a stable levels of 15ppm ought to do it, but 30ppm might not have issues.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[orchidsnfish]

Interesting. I have read lots of articles saying run the CO2 24/7 but doing so has never seemed like a good idea to me personally. Not on a tank without a refugium with 24 hr lighting anyway. I added some mysis shrimp this morning and will be adding 200 red volcanic shrimp when they show up.

Thanks for the compliment on the tank. I think the aquascaping is a disaster but I feel a little better. I actually planned for the tank to be very open but it didn't quite work out that way as you can see. It has 30 lbs of lalo and about 60 lbs of base from reeferrocks. This tank is an aquascaping nightmare. I figure it isn't really going to matter once the algae grows out.

Thanks
Angela

[morphriz]

Wow!

I've never though of having a 24h lit refugium to stabilize the CO2 during night! Wonder if I can convert that idea back to FW...

orchnidsfish: My compliments on the tank as well!

[orchidsnfish]

I decided to not run the CO2 at night. One of the many advantages of being a nurse is that cool vented IV tubing. All I have to do is open the vent at night and close it in the morning. I feel much better doing it this way as I know the pH would hit rock bottom during the night with the CO2 running. I am such a nerd I know but I turned all the circulation off and sat for an hour or so lastnight watching how much O2 the macro was putting off. That's so cool to me. I was also amazed to see the tank is crawling with pods of all types.

Thanks for the tip
Angela

[morphriz]

Since I have personal experience on the subject I can repeat the general rule for DIY CO2. Dot not (nvever, ever, under any circumstance whatsoever) restrict you DIY CO2 bottle. They are prone to exploding!! The result can be that your home will smell like a moonshine barn for _months_!

Here are some stories on the subject:
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/yeast-disaster.html

I only fouled my aquarium cabinet and all equipment therein. I heeded not the "dont restict output" warning but I used a cheap ceramic airstone that got blocked.

[orchidsnfish]

I kinda figured that might be a problem. It's not restricted at all. The tubing has a vent right where it comes out of the bottle. If the vent is opened, the CO2 goes out the vent. If it's closed the CO2 goes on up the tubing to the tank. It's pretty cool. As soon as I open the vent the bubbling in the tank stops. When I close it, it starts bubbling again. I guess it's kind of hard to visualize what Im talking about. Works like a charm though and much easier than having to unhook the tubing from the tank every night.

Angela

[CELACANTHr]

Could you post a pic of this vent?

[Samala]

I think the tank looks great! The rock may look very patchy but the macros are going to do a bang up job carving little beautiful patches in it. Please dont feel like a nerd for watching O2 bubbles (or pearling).. I do it every few nights myself just to check whats growing and what seems to be just hanging on.

I am curious Angela, the second pic you posted seemed a little cloudy. Was that from a recent water change, or do you think previously running the CO2 at night was causing a bacterial bloom in the water? I ask because one of my test tanks has developed one heck of a cloudy water outbreak.. and I'm scratching my head here trying to figure out a cause. It has no animal life (well, 'cept some pods) so it gets CO2 for twenty-four hours because I'm lazy and forget about it most nights. It seems that if I unplug the CO2 at night its a wee less hazy in the mornings than if I forget.

>Sarah

[morphriz]

The best method of CO2 balancing with DIY I've come across is a double tank setup with common circulation running opposite 12h photoperiods. I.e. one has night when one has day. Might be something for you with alot of tanks.

Hope this helps
Mattias

[orchidsnfish]

Samala:
The tank does seem a little cloudy in the morning when I run the CO2 all night actually. That particular day I rearranged a lot of stuff and added new algae plus a waterchange so it could have been partially due to that.

I dont have a pic of the IV tubing but heres one off the net. The vent is the little rubber stopper right below the bag spike and before the drip chamber. The bag spike goes into my CO2 bottle. The only thing I have thought of that the roller clamp could be used for is keeping a new batch of yeast and water from back siphoning.

[Samala]

Ingenious device there Angela, I am going to have to source one for myself.. if not for CO2, for dosing other things. Thanks for the notes on the potential cloudy water associations.

>Sarah

[orchidsnfish]

Yeah I use an IV set to drip kalk from a 5 gallon jug into my 180 too...Endless uses! Those big syringes are also great for lots of stuff.

Angela

[Foxfire]

I've set up a CO2-supplied marine planted tank now. It's been going for 3 days; DIY CO2 on 24/7. No cloudiness yet.

Also dosed nitrates.
Observed noticeable growth on grass-like macro (dunno the name).

Dosed Flourish Excel (just to see what would happen).
A micro star that had hitchhiked on the grass exploded.

Changed out half the water with water from the main tank.
Plants... er, I mean the macros, still look good.

[Samala]

Dosed Flourish Excel (just to see what would happen).
A micro star that had hitchhiked on the grass exploded. ... Plants... er, I mean the macros, still look good.

Exploded as in had babies or exploded as in the star is no longer in the land of the living? If you havent already you might want to see the organic C dosing thread for reasons against using Excel. But, the interaction is very interesting. You'll have to let us know if any of the macros show a reaction to it in the next few days.

Glad to see another person in the CO2 mix.

>Sarah

[Foxfire]

Samala, the sea star exploded as in turned to mush. Happened in moments with just a few drops of excel. DO NOT try this if you have organisms or you're dosing in the main tank (duh).
OTOH, macros were unaffected. Color and structure integrity were maintained.

24 hours later, grass-like plant unchanged, appears healthy. Grape caulerpa has seemed to lose a little color indicating nutrient deficiency - light and CO2 seem to be pushing it. Will need to dose nutrients....

Joni

[The_Nexis_One]

Sorry for being absent for so long, but Work has been nuts. I've continued on my own and kept up with my homework of experiments

I think I have enough proof and have ruled out other components of my system - at least enough to comment with certainty on if CO2 makes a difference.

I've been running CO2 for just under a week and have found insane increases in growth of both Macro's and Seagrass.

....what do I mean by "insane" you ask?

Let me draw you a mental picture since I'm at work and wont be uploading pix for at least a week. (2am sucks no matter how you look at it when at work).

I've been dosing 1.5ppm of NO3 per system volume (as KNO3) and .8ml of SeaChem's Freshwater Planted solution (0.24% Fe). My macro's have been growing well, and were growing much faster in the beginning, but slowed after several weeks. My seagrasses both started growing well with new leaves and then started to slow. Likewise, my micro algae stopped completely while the macro's/seagrasses were soaking up the nutrients and growing, but micro's began coming back again as complex floura tapered off.

I have experimented with raising and lowering the dosings of both Nitrate and Iron over the course of weeks and wasn't able to respark the growth that the system had in the beginning.

Out of curiosity, and a spare 30 minutes, I grabbed a 2-liter soda bottle that I had stashed in my tank supplies and headed for the kitchen. I had a setup complete with bubble counter running at 1 bubble per second (regulated with a needle valve from a dual gang airline distro) within about 8 hours (used warm water and good yeast to jump start the process). I ran the CO2 into the intake on the return pump that feeds the lagoon and effectively misted the tank during daylight hours; at night I disconnected the CO2 feed line from the 2-liter bottle. The CO2 would fog the Lagoon every so often due to irregular gas production and in-between the Lagoon would circulate micro bubbles around. The micro bubbles were sticking to the macro's and seagrass, along with the sand, etc. In the beginning I disliked the microbubbles because it detracted from the crystal clear look of the lagoon - but after seeing the results... I'm all to happy to see the champagne look of my lagoon.

My Halodule Wrightii is producing .5"+ of growth per plant per day with new leaves; and new plants coming out of the sand as well. My Turtle Grass has just popped out it's 3rd new leaf since planting and this last leaf has grown from 0.25" to 2.5" and the second to last has gone from .75" to 2.5" since I started dosing CO2. My feather caulerpa colony has doubled in size to fill an area ~6"x4"x5"tall, my 2 Grape caulerpa colonies are being pruned every other day because they are sending out ~4 4"-5" runners in that time and have more than doubled their 'grape' count. My Caulerpa Prolifera was actually dying back and had lost 1/4 of it's fronds by slowly dieing back from the frond tips. It has now completely recovered and has increased it's mass by .5x; it's now growing 5-6 new ~1.5" leaves per day!. My Halymenia has doubled in mass to form a 5"x3"x3" mass in addition to two seperate 2" spheres. My red mystery grape'ish macro has doubled in mass as well (even with heavy grazing by the Scat). Throughout this growth, I've increased my Nitrate dosing to 2-3ppm per day and the Fe to 1ml-1.25ml (based on amound of new growth each day). My pH was swinging from 8.1 to 8.56 and is now swinging from 8.1 to 8.28. My pH prob is in the common sump so I'm sure the lagoon was seeing more of a pH hit than the rest of the system, but that was by design since I didn't know how the experiment would go. I'm also skimming with a small skimmer - which helped minutely reduce the CO2 offset for the display/sump areas(in theory anyway). Lastly, my Bryarium in the display tank which I had almost given up on since it would never stay out during the day has been out almost around the clock. I'm hopefull that it will stop receeding as it has for ~8 months.

So... obviously, this is just some basic subjective observations and not a direct recount of the last several weeks - but I can tell you for certain from having lived the experiance. CO2 makes a huge difference.

I'll be moving forward and getting a compressed CO2 setup shortly.

My 3 Conch's, snails, hermits, starfish, Emerald crab, Rock anemone, 4 Mollies, 1 spotted Scat, 1 Very large Snowflake, 2 Green Chromis, and 1 Kupang Damsel haven't made a peep about the CO2. Likewise, my pompom xenia is spreading and pulsing like crazy in the lagoon. The inhabitants as a whole are showing no signs of stress, not even while swiming through the clouds of CO2 as they are shot into the Lagoon. I've paid particular attention to their breathing/activity levels while I was experimenting - careful to watch for any increase in respiration or decrease in activity.

Oh... and the mangroves just keep growing leaves

I'm sold.

Thank you again Sarah!!
John.

Tomorrow, Ilyanassa obsoleta, Grass shrimp, and Fiddler crabs should show up and I'll take the Lagoon one step closer to what it should be. Wish me luck.

[Foxfire]

John, I'm also doing experiments, albeit on a much smaller scale! I'm very interested to note your use of seachem's freshwater plant nutrients. Have you specifically dosed iron? Phosphates?

Thanks,
Joni

[The_Nexis_One]

Originally posted by Foxfire
John, I'm also doing experiments, albeit on a much smaller scale! I'm very interested to note your use of seachem's freshwater plant nutrients. Have you specifically dosed iron? Phosphates?

Thanks,
Joni

*******
EDIT
*******
I was mistaken - it's NOT Seachem. It's KENT Freshwater Planted = K & Fe suppliment with other micronutients. ...too many Fe suppliments laying around from testing different ones.
________________________________
Original post:

Well... I've tried both gluconated Fe and Chelated and found better (much) results with the later. I also recently purchased a Chelated Fe solution from my LFS that was intended to be used in SW... but after dosing 5 drops for two days my Nitrates read 20ppm (had been <5ppm) ... I thought something might have died in the tank, but after accounting for everything and watching the decline of my macro's (this is what started the Prolifera die-back) I realized that my NO3 was way low and the test kit was reading the chelate as nitrate.

I returned the Fe solution to the LFS and went back to the Freshwater Planted solution until I get around to buying Kent's SuperChelated; which is the only one that I've heard recommended as providing good results in SW... I think Sarah is currently using it, but I'm not positive.

I don't dose Phosphates as I've always had a problem with them in my systems, so.... at this phase at least I invision the process soaking the PO4 out of the LR/DSB for the plants... especially at this lower pH (been told that low pH will mobilize PO4 from it's bonds to LR/DSB surfaces).

I was just reminded of a draw back to dosing CO2 when I went to check the tank this morning... ...it's time to prune all the macro's again.....

John.

[Foxfire]

John, thanks for the clarification.

I've got a jug of Seachem Iron and will dose that... unless anyone has objections to it?

Would like to also report recent observations:
Grass-like algae continues to increase in length.
Grape caulerpa unchanged.
Gracilera (sp?) shows increased branching at tips, but new growth is darker green in color.

[Samala]

3.20.06


4.26.06


Not so much to report as you can see. The water is hazy/cloudy from a big water change yesterday. Maybe I'll post better pics in a few days when it clears. But I have time now.

So.. tank params: NO3 2-5ppm; PO4 0.1 (I have to dose it guys!); Fe dosing to bottle directions using Kent's Iron Chelate; pH 8.1 - 8.2; Alk 3 - 3.5meq/L.

And.. the final count for harvesting shoal grass between these two pics is 255 plants. So, a lot of plants being produced.

I also added Halophila ovalis and its doing okay so far, nothing spectacular but it just went in this week. Losing most of its leaves but the rhizomes are extending and tossing new leaves (which look terrible and are stunted, but about what I expected given experience with stargrass).



Isnt my pygmy cute? Model planted tank citizen too.

>Sarah

[Plantbrain]

Sounds good on the pearling, that is a key observational piece of info you will always want to see and look at before makign changes.

The plants/macro's rule and are the ultimate "test". Follow what makes them grow best/better.

We hooked up the CO2 finally.
The weeds are growing very fast.

Another thing you can do is frwequent large water changes to see if things are slightly or largely CO2 deficient.

As growth rates increase and biomass increases and plants/macros get geared up to respond to optimal conditions, they get waht I sometimes call "plant momentum".

At these points, you have to add something else to increase growth rates, maybe light, maybe NO3, maybe PO4, maybe CO2 etc.

As mentioned, SeaChem or any weak ligand like gulconate is fine for lower pH's in soft water FW system,s, but poor at the pH/alkalinities we deal with here.

Dose frequently and dose heavy folks with this.
TMG is not bad either.

EDTA is the best for the targets we have.
Iron is a very funny trace metal also.
Eye ball the amounts you dose and keep notes of the volume of the tank/mls you added. Give dosing changes 3 weeks at least before passing any judgement.

They are only traces....but important.....
The max amount you will ever likely need is about 4mls per 80 liters every other day. This assumes the rest is in good shape and high plant density.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[The_Nexis_One]

Sarah - the tank look amazing! I'm really impressed with the continued Shoalgrass growth and the Ovalis looks exceptional - that's going to look great when it fills in up front.

I wish I knew what made your Halimynia grow different than mine. Mine is deep red with very dense curls/spurs while yours seems to grow more flowing, smooth with hints of orange.

I'm going to try moving some of mine a little further from the light and see if it'll morph a little.

Thanks for the info Tom. The hardest part in my mind is dosing Nitrate, Iron, CO2, and potentially Phosphate without being able to test any of them reliably (even nitrate is difficult to test low levels - for me anyway)! I'm a very seat of my pants/enjoy a challenge kind of guy - but I don't typically take much risk with my systems... So, thanks again for some 'upper limit' info on Fe.

John.

[Samala]

John you are such a flatterer! Thanks for the very kind words. If I did not do any harvesting of the plants the whole front would already be filled in with shoal grass. You can hardly tell 'cause of the fuzziness of the shot, but the shoal grass is overgrowing and invading the prolifera stand. And, while I just three days ago cleared out the whole front section (about 90 plants creeping all the way up to the front glass and spitting rhizomes all over the place) the shoal grass is already coming back to the front glass. I found some of it rooted into the LR at the back right earlier tonight.

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).

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.

Tom: I should probably know this, but whats TMG? Tropica Master Grow?

Also, which weeds are you giving the CO2? I'm curious to see if the calcerous weeds like this or not. I cant maintain Halimeda in my tank currently.. curious if the CO2 is the culprit.

>Sarah