Re: [AGA Member] CO2 efficiency in hard water

["S. Hieber" <shieber@yahoo.com>]

--- Amit Brucker <amitb@gtek.co.il> wrote:
> Thanks!
> Well I did increase a bit the CO2 levels...
> I will stop aerating in a couple of days.
> I will try to target to PH 7.0 hopefully at about 30ppm.
> Although I still think that as for now the CO2 system
> wasn't that dominant
> in the process because of my water parameters - Would be
> nice to try this
> for a period of time (just a thought ;-))
> I am thinking that even removing the system - thus would
> generate a slight
> increase in about 0.1/0.2 degrees in PH, assuming as well
> that KH levels are
> the same - I would end up at about 14-16 ppm of CO2.

With adding CO2, you won't have CO2 levels that high --
maybe lots of gas right out of the tap but it won't last
for days.

Try this. Let's assume normal CO2 level is 5 ppm. It's
really lower than than but I want to leave some room for
safety. Take some aquarium water in a glass and aerate the
heck out of it to drive off the CO2 -- even better, also
let it sit over night. Then check the KH and pH. Now read
the CO2 value on the table. If it's more than 5 ppm, then
subtract 5 from that CO2 value you got from the table.
Treat that result of that subtraction as the error in your
table reading when checking the CO2 levels in your
aquarium. I'll bet with the error correction you get more
realistic values, with or without adding CO2. Could be your
CO2 levels are simply not very high and you need to inject
more CO2 than you have been. Let's see what happens if you
try the error correction value. Don't change your CO2 to
get 30 ppm using teh error correction. Let's jsut see what
it comes out to first.

> I
> still think that
> plants at least the hard water lovers of them can do
> quite well in hard
> water conditions, even without injecting CO2.

Yes, some plants (e.g., vals) can get carbon from
carbornates in the water but it's more work for them than
getting it from CO2. And Claus Chrstiansen, from Tropica,
showed slides at the AGA 2003 Convention of echinodorus in
Brazil growing in a bed of pure caclium carbonate!

> But I will take the opposite approach thus - adding more
> CO2 and even more
> lights.

No, leave the lights alone. The point of raising the CO2 to
30 ppm is just to see how it impacts the pH. We're just
testing the effect. Besides, if you change too many things
at once, it will be hard to tell what's happening and
you'll risk setting of an algae bloom of some kind. CO2
will have a noticeable impact even at low light levels.

sh


=====
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Field Trip to the Baltimore Aquarium and The Aquarium Center
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