CO2 Absorbtion Rate

[Madame_X]

My Hagen Natural Plant System CO2 has been up and running for four days now. I'm getting bubbles at a much higher rate than I expected--about 1 bubble every 5 seconds. I assume this is because our house stays pretty warm (stays in the mid to upper 70's during the day).

I've also been told that the bubble counter/ladder won't give you the greatest absorbtion. However, today since things have really gotten rolling along, I noticed that the bubbles start out about the size of a pea but are reduced down to a teeny-tiny speck of a bubble by the time they reach the top of the ladder and float to the top.

I also noticed today that I have tiny bubbles forming on the leaves of my sword plant and my water sprite.

Is it possible to have pearling with such a small CO2 unit after just four days?

For the record, this is a 30 gallon Oceanic cube, about 21.5" tall.

 

[Neuve]

Could we get a pic? Just for curiosity, ive never seen what youre talking about, but id love to get to know more about your setup.
Thanx

 

[Allivymar]

How cool Madame_X! Can't see why they wouldn't pearl; must be some happy plants *grin*

If you haven't yet, check your CO2 levels. Easiest way to do that (if you don't already know) is find out your pH and kH levels, and use the calculator on the bottom of this page: http://www.caloriesperhour.com/fish/notes_co2.html

 

[Madame_X]

Could we get a pic? Just for curiosity, ive never seen what youre talking about, but id love to get to know more about your setup.
Thanx

I'll try, Neuve! There are pictures of the tank in my gallery, but it has changed a lot since then.

I just ordered some more plants from azgardens.com, so I'll have to get some updated shots once those are in place.

 

[Guest]

Hope you have good luck with azgardens.

 

[Neuve]

Cool, merci beacup madame_x!!!

 

[Madame_X]

Have you not had good luck with them, Rex?

The plants arrived yesterday, and most of them looked great. There was one onion bulb that didn't look very good and my Brazilian Pennywort was mostly just stems (but I ordered way too much and it supposedly grows very quickly so no worries). Aside from that, everything looked great. I ordered an ozelot sword that was WAY bigger than I expected, and it looks super healthy.

I ordered from them mainly because I live in Arizona and they're in-state, but I'm open to other opinions. Is Aquabotanic that much better?

 

[Guest]

Since you live in AZ and ordered in the "cool" weather you did ok. I have read too many horror stories of substituted plants, cooked plants, bad plants and so on to even give them a try. I have made a couple of orders from AquaBotanic but normally either beg or trade from fellow hobbyists or I'm lucky in that I have a great LFS.

 

[Madame_X]

Yeah, I wanted to place an order all summer but its been too dang hot to order anything until just recently. My LFS has a decent selection of plants right now but everything is so much cheaper online, even with the shipping as long as you place a big enough order.

I don't know anyone else locally who has a freshwater planted tank, especially anyone I would trust.

In any event, I think my tank looks really nice now and I was able to get rid of most of the hornwort with the nice selection of plants I have now. My fish seem pretty happy!