Hi,
Just wanna find out how you guys/girls measure your tank CO2 level?
1) Calculation using PH / KH
2) Drop Checker
3) Base on own observation of fishes / plants
4) No idea, as long as the plants / fishes are ok.
For those who use drop checker,care to share with brand you use? Does it comes with a 4dKH solution & bromothymol blue PH reagent? Or does the instruction say add 3-4 drops of CO2 reagent and add aquarium water to half fill the ball portion?
Thanks for reading and hope to get some feedback.
Cheers
Drop checker probably the most cost effective and accurate so far, any brand will do. If not mistaken only Dennerle and CAL aqua that does not require kh 4 solution. The reagent is already pre-mixed. Other normally only reagent and ask user to mix with tank water.
the cheapest most practical way is to use a drop checker.
Though there are electronic dissolved CO2 meters available, they're not cheap (I haven't seen one under $1000.)
Like this one: http://www.pointfour.com/Products/CO...zer/index.html
The other way is with an electronic pH controller and a solenoid valve for your CO2 tank, but you will need to know what pH your tank is at when its at the optimal level of CO2 concentration, and this tends to fluctuate especially over time.
Robert,Originally Posted by Shadow
So do you think those that ask user to mix with tank water are accurate as in telling you the amount of CO2 that is being dissolved in your tank? I really have doubt on that, I was thinking the colour shown just telling me the PH value instead of CO2.
If you are saying that Dennerle & CAL aqua does not require 4dKH solution,cause it's already pre-mixed,mind if I ask you have you use their product? Do they give you accurate CO2 readings?
I happen to see CAL aqua product, but surprisingly they did not state what is the composition of their solution. That is why I didn't buy it as I'm not sure and started this thread for advice.
Yes that is essentially how drop checkers work, the pH value which causes the colour change have been calculated to correspond to the approximate CO2 concentration in your water.
I have used both the ADA and CAL Aqua labs drop checkers, the ADA one required mixing of 4 dKH solution with the reagent, and the CAL Aqua one comes ready mixed.
With a KH test kit, some distilled water and a bit of Bicarbonate of Soda, its really not hard to mix up some 4 dKH solution.
Personally I found the ADA drop checker to be faster responding and easier to read at a glance, even though the Cal Aqua labs comes with a chamber to hold a reference colour solution,
but thats just my personal preference, both will do the job just fine.
Regardless which brand as long as it is not premixed, you need to mix it with kh 4 solution instead of your tank water. Reason because you want to measure the ph cause by CO2 and not cause by something else. Thus mixing it with tank water not the right thing to do since the pH of your tank water can be cause by soil, peat, tanin, etc. Furthermore if you are using ADA soil where it have the ability to reduce the kH, you end up mixing the reagent with kh 0 and that will make you drop checker always yellow.
The way drop checker work is based on the fact that CO2 inside the drop checker chamber will slowly equilibrium with CO2 concentration in the tank. I do not know how to explain it clearly, in the nutshell soluble CO2 in the tank turn into gas and enter the drop checker chamber and mixed with the solution inside.
Thus drop checker do measure the CO2 concentration in the tank indirectly.
There you go, I believe ADA drop checker will give you more accurate readings. Read from some forum doing up the 4dKH solution with distilled water & baking soda, but unfortunately I do not have the mini weighing scale that will give me 1.2g of baking soda to mix with 1 litre of distilled water.
Thanks for all the input Fuzzy.
I second your theory. Therefore, hope other beginners like me know what they are buying if they want to purchase a true CO2 drop checker indicator.
Thanks again, Robert.
cheapest way, crank co2 till safe level.how? get a reactor, see if there are enough bubbles in the reactor (say if u set to 4bps for a 4 feet tank), how much bubble accumulate in your reactor after 2-3 hrs, and are your fauna okay..
money used on ada checker, etc etc, can be saved for topping Co2 cyclinder.
that being said, i bought an ada drop checker, but now, i dunno where it is.. once i put it as a decoration on the ground (soil) of my fish tank..
Cheers, Christophe
Hey Christophe,
I know ADA stuffs are expensive, but did it give you accurate CO2 readings back then? What makes you put it on your tank ground as decoration? You used up all the 4dKH / reagent solution?
I've found that using a drop checker is a much more reliable (and humane) method of monitoring CO2 concentrations, but thats just my personal opinion.
An ADA drop checker is really not all that expensive, when you consider that you can buy about 5-10 drop checkers for the price of a single pleco that many of our members keep.
Or 1 - 2 of them for a single CRS, heh.
I think I did not really need it. My method of fertilizing, or injecting Co2 do not follow a precise regime.
Bought it on impulse. Maybe I never know how to use the solution to get me the right readings. I lost the reagent solution, just like I misplaced the drop checker as well. But it did really look well in my fish tank, and my fish like to "smile" at it.(joking)
Cheers, Christophe
it is a good to have but not must. There is other way but its make communication easier in the forum.
For example if you have algae issue and forumer start asking tank spec. If you tell them you inject 10bps, people will still asking how many ppm is that because bps is very much useless.
It is also good for visual indicator if the CO2 tank empty, some of us put the CO2 tank inside the cabinet.
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