Concerns about O2

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SparKy697

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I have a fair amount of plants in my 29 g tank and just started co2. I also just changed from a bio-wheel to a canister filter.

I think I'm seeing more gill action/movement in the corys, everybody else seems to be doing fine.

How do I know if my plants are providing enough O2?

Should I be running an air stone at night?
 
If your are the least bit concerned, you can either turn off the CO2 at night or add an airstone for the evening, either way will do the job.
 
rich311k said:
If your are the least bit concerned, you can either turn off the CO2 at night or add an airstone for the evening, either way will do the job.
agreed :D
 
Why does everyone say night? Is that merely a plant/light thing? Is the assumption that plants are making O2 during the day? I run an air stone for seven hours or so during the day when I am at work. That way I don't see the air stone, except on weekends really.
 
Plants produce O2 during the day while they're photosynthesizing, but at night they stop consuming CO2 and producing O2 and cosume the O2 right along with the fish. In a planted tank that is heavily stocked with fish this can cause problems if the plants don't produce enough O2 during the day for both the plants and the fish at night.

The solution is to provide more surface aggitation at night which will cause some loss of CO2 in a CO2 injected tank, but most importantly it will raise the O2 levels so that the fish make it through the night safely. It's only done at night with a CO2 injected tank to ensure that you are wasting your precious CO2 during the day while the plants need it.

With a non CO2 injected tank it's actually beneficial to increase surface agitation at all times since this helps to raise both the CO2 and O2 levels.
 
I understand photosynthesis cycles, day vs. night. I guess the reason I was asking is that my tank is not heavily planted, so I'm not counting on the plants to produce enough O2 to be dissolved in the water. I run the air pump during the day for about seven hours. Is it better to run at night?
 
my tank is not heavily planted, so I'm not counting on the plants to produce enough O2 to be dissolved in the water. I run the air pump during the day for about seven hours. Is it better to run at night?

If really lightly planted..probably surface agitation is needed day and night.
 
I don't know, maybe I'm just being paranoid. If they were starving fro o2 wouldn't they come to the top of the tank?

The cory cats are the only ones that I can say for sure that looked like they were breathing fast.

I assume that as the plants take off, o2 will be less of a problem?
 
I'm working under the assumption that if you see them running around as normal first thing in the morning everything is fine...if they are up "eating air" you need to ad O2 at night or more plants!
 
theotheragentm said:
I understand photosynthesis cycles, day vs. night. I guess the reason I was asking is that my tank is not heavily planted, so I'm not counting on the plants to produce enough O2 to be dissolved in the water. I run the air pump during the day for about seven hours. Is it better to run at night?

It depend entirely on whether or not you are injecting CO2. You can run the air pump 24/7 if you aren't injecting CO2. It's better only run it at night if you are injecting CO2 so that you aren't working against yourself when the plants are actually using the CO2.
 
Well I think that my concerns about O2 were founded. As it turns out, my digital thermometer was not even close to being accurate. It has been telling me that my water was 76.5 deg. while this whole time it was closer to 83!!! I could not really see the numbers on the heater so I just adjusted it by the thermometer. Everybody seems much more at ease now! Especially me.
 
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