ALGAE: excess or deficiency?

[Plantbrain]

Plantbrain- Are you a proponent of Co2 levels upwards of 60ppm? Does higher Co2 not require dosing at higher levels?

How certain are you it's 60ppm derived solely from CO2?

That is the real question.

I hear this all the time, folks give me these readings on line and assume they are accurate based solely of the test kits/methods etc.

I tend to go with the algae, and plants, test kits lie and have assumptions added(and are seldom calibrated against a known and few hobbyists ever do this), algae do not.

There's some variability with algae, but much less so than cheapy test kits and alkalinity measurement assumptions.

KH test total alkalinity, not bicarbonate.
All KH test kits do this.

It's assumed that all alk is bicarb, that is not true, but it often is true......but not always...........and folks have claimed 210ppm and excellent plant growth, fish health etc but using caliobrated pH probes, good KH test kits.....so...........,clearly it's unlikely that the reading of 210 ppm of CO2 is correct, yet fish are fine.............

It's not just this one person in Ohio, it's 100's of folks.

Make a known KH reference solution.
Test this against your KH test kit.
Do the same for pH.

Then compare.

You do this a few times, you quickly realize you have a lot more confidence than many and the algae and the CO2 correlate very well now............

Now many aquarist simply do not want to be bothered with all that.
They believe that it is not needed.

And they are right, that's why I use plants and algae to do the work for me.

But you can try either or better yet, both methods and see for yourself.


Regards,
Tom Barr