Co2

[francis tan]

Dear Friends,

I'm a newcomer to the Planted Tank and only started realizing my courage late last year. My planted tank was set-up in Nov last year with help from a old friend. Due to budget constraint, i only managed to introduce CO2 system to tank recently.

I have been reading quite a lot articles posted here as well as asking questions. The whole CO2 set-up is done for the tank and over the last 3 weeks, i have seen great improvement and so far, all the plants reacted well.

I have 2 questions.

a) I have yet to see any bubble releasing from any of the plants since the day CO2 got injected into the tank. Something might be missing, need help.....

b) I have notice snails infesting the tank, any solution?

Appreciate comments.....Regards, Francis

[PeterGwee]

Dear Friends,

I'm a newcomer to the Planted Tank and only started realizing my courage late last year. My planted tank was set-up in Nov last year with help from a old friend. Due to budget constraint, i only managed to introduce CO2 system to tank recently.

I have been reading quite a lot articles posted here as well as asking questions. The whole CO2 set-up is done for the tank and over the last 3 weeks, i have seen great improvement and so far, all the plants reacted well.

I have 2 questions.

a) I have yet to see any bubble releasing from any of the plants since the day CO2 got injected into the tank. Something might be missing, need help.....

b) I have notice snails infesting the tank, any solution?

Appreciate comments.....Regards, Francis

a) What plants do you have in there? Is the plant mass in the tank very high? What kind of nutrients are you dosing for the plants? Amount of the light over the tank? Tank size? Pearling is an indicator of O2 saturation and also a good indicator for plant folks to see how well their plants are doing. The amount of pearling depends on the plants mass, water current, plant types, light intensity and etc.

b) I don't bother with them..they are part of my eco-system..

Regards
Peter Gwee

[hwchoy]

snail is part and parcel of a freshwater ecosystem, however they can be unsightly if they get rather out of hand. a single horseface loach will solve your problem especially if it is heavily planted. other similar small botia type loach will work too.

on the other hand, keep a few "zebra" snail which is quite pretty and helps clean green algae off those really hard to reach places. you can get the snails from such LFS as WuHu (Tiong Bahru Ben) should be around $1 each.

[ranmasatome]

Zebra Snails lays quite a bit of unsightly eggs...just beware...i got it and never got them again.

[hwchoy]

interestingly mine never lay any eggs

[Giant]

Hi Peter.

Sorry ah, but what is "Pearling"?

Is it the same as bubbling?

[PeterGwee]

Hi Peter.

Sorry ah, but what is "Pearling"?

Is it the same as bubbling?

Yup, bubbling...

Regards
Peter Gwee

[chua]

Hi,

There is a different between pearling and bubbling.

Bubbling is a string of oxygen bubbles produce from the plants. It is quite common at the part where you cut your stem plants.

Pearling is a single oxygen bubble trap on the tip of the plants. Riccia is a very good example of plants that pearl.

Correct me if i am wrong.

Thanks.

[hwchoy]

I don't make a distinction really, since both are generated by the same process.

[PeterGwee]

"Bubbling" is a general term I think...Basically, what you want to see is bubbles attached onto leaves. The other is "streaming" which occurs with damaged leaves or cut stems. "Streaming" can occur without saturation of O2 in water...I'll take pearling..

Regards
Peter Gwee

[blueray]

HaHa...I think I never know there is a different also

[uyopong]

which is better? to leave 24/7 CO2 on or turn off when lights off too?

[Giant]

Better to turn off when lights off.
Plants will only need the CO2 during daylight time for photosynthesis.

Night time they will take in O2 like all living organisms.
If you leave the CO2 on 24/7 your fish might die.

[hii]

Did you connect the CO2 directly to diffuser ( U shape glass type) or CO2 reactor with ball inside (3 balls)?

I connect my CO2 reactor from canister outlet and rain bar at the end to help spread the water with CO2 to the whole 4ft tank. And all plants after 2-3 hrs can see lot of bubble (few hundreds) on the leaves and some release to water surface. I have a huge Japonica and Tiger red lotus in the tank and it did block a bit of the water going to the other side so less bubble on that site.

My other 3ft tank use glass type co2 diffuser and the result was very poor cause only few plants have little bubble, cause the CO2 didn't dissolve properly and lot of co2 wasted after reach the surface of water.

Search on the forum for CO2 reactor or u can DIY one to help you on the current problem. I intend to do one soon .. no time to find the hardware ...

[tango]

Did you connect the CO2 directly to diffuser ( U shape glass type) or CO2 reactor with ball inside (3 balls)?

I connect my CO2 reactor from canister outlet and rain bar at the end to help spread the water with CO2 to the whole 4ft tank. And all plants after 2-3 hrs can see lot of bubble (few hundreds) on the leaves and some release to water surface. I have a huge Japonica and Tiger red lotus in the tank and it did block a bit of the water going to the other side so less bubble on that site.

My other 3ft tank use glass type co2 diffuser and the result was very poor cause only few plants have little bubble, cause the CO2 didn't dissolve properly and lot of co2 wasted after reach the surface of water.

Search on the forum for CO2 reactor or u can DIY one to help you on the current problem. I intend to do one soon .. no time to find the hardware ...

I use CO2 diffuser (10cm tall version) for my 3 feet tank, 1.5 bps, and on round the clock, all my plant, moss and downoi are ok, and my tank is into the 18mth ; But I have less than 20 tetra, about 50 shrimps and one puffer;

tango

[Giant]

Hey Tango,

Your puffer doesn't touch your shrimps?

Cos I had one puffer (not the dwarf one, but a thumb sized one) who practically dismantled my office tank's blue lobster.

[wf7850]

Bro Giant, my dwarf puffer attack my cherry babies....n it out of my shrimp tank for now.

Bro Tango pls observe the puffer carefully, once he start attacking shrimp is time to remove it.

[tango]

nope, it did not attack my shrimp;

my puffer is about 6mm in length, I purposely buy the most kak tek one from the LFS; and i don;t think it belong to the dwarf puffer species;
maybe it is a peaceful puffer, contended in eating snail;

tango