Air pump in planted tank??

[mackdaddy81]

I know that you shouldn't have an air pump running during the day because it removes CO2 from the water, but I was reading somewhere that you should turn one on at night to remove the extra CO2 that the plants produce during the night. Is this a good thing to do, or is it unnecessary?

Thanks!

 

[neilanh]

That only applies if you're injecting CO2 into the system. If not, then an airpump will help to maintain a consistent CO2 level equal to the atmosphere.

Some believe that running an airstone at night is beneficial to the fish, some do not. I turn my CO2 injection off at night and don't run any airstones.

 

[mackdaddy81]

I have a DIY CO2 injector in the tank, so I can't really turn it off at night. Before I added live plants, I had a bunch of plastic ones and my air pump that I was using was a 20 to 60 gallon pump. Now that I have live plants I think that it might be too much air even at night, so I'm debating if I should keep it on at night, or just get rid of it all together.

 

[neilanh]

I think you'll be fine either way.

 

[fort384]

When I was running a diy system, I ran an air pump at night. Without it my co2 levels were jumping sky high by morning, and along with it a pretty massive pH shift, which I imagine wasn't to healthy for my fish. . With it running when the lights went out, my co2 stayed pretty constant, day and night. I think it depends though on the size of your tank and the amount of co2 you are getting from your diy system. If you decide to run it and you don't want to buy a smaller pump, your lfs should have an air control valve that you can put inline to dial down the output, and they usually cost about a buck.