Carbon dioxide: bubbler vs liquid additive

[ciph3ro]

I noticed that a tank that has CO2 has much better plant growth.

I love planted tanks and have ever kept 4 so far. I have never had CO2 but I just bought liquid CO2 additive made by Excel.

If I dose the recommended amount will it work the same way as a bubbler? A bubbler just dissolved CO2 in the water so I imagine this does about the same thing.

I'm wondering if it delivers CO2 to the plants the same way and what the difference in efficiency is.

I expect a bubbler to be better but you never know until you ask or research.

Thank you.

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[ciph3ro]

Here are some pictures

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[ciph3ro]

And more

Never any CO2. Now I can only imagine what i could do if I added some.

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[Old Scales]

If you had CO2 you'd have to buy an underwater weedeater. Seriously, I dosed Glut(Excel)for about a year before getting my pressurized Co2. I could grow all but the hardest to grow plants and they looked really nice. When I went to CO2 all my plants put on bigger leaves and grew faster. Also the hard plants started to grow instead of just sit there. I read someone say that Glut was about 60% as effective as pressurized CO2. One note is that I still dose Glut with the CO2 as it helps fight algae and is just a little extra.
Your tanks look really nice. Plants look great! Congrats. With CO2 on some of the plants I see in your tanks, they would grow so fast as to be a pain to keep trimmed so often.
All this is assuming you have adequate light. OS.

 

[ciph3ro]

Sounds like I'm going to just dose the liquid one. I don't have tanks big enough or the time to trim them that much.

For lighting I find that the Marineland Hidden LED system does a really good job of supplementing the stock aquarium lighting. I also bought a Marineland Double Bright LED strip but it seems that it's not as bright as the fluorescent light the tank came with. That's that light strip suction-cupped to the glass in the quarter angle to picture of one of my tanks.

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[ciph3ro]

Thanks OS; seems like you're here often

I really enjoy perusing this forum as well.

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[jestes]

I'd go with a nice pressurized system. I tried the glut/excel method for a while, and it gets expensive. Plus, some flora/fauna don't respond well to liquid carbon. I dosed some once and watched an angelfish swim right through it. If fish could snort pepper, I'd imagine the result would be the same as what my fish did.... It seemed no worse for the wear afterwards, but it definitely looked like it stung a bit. I was always more careful after that.

 

[Old Scales]

I buy the glut by the gallon on Amazon. It's called Metricide14. It is about $17-20 for a gallon. You throw the little activator bottle away that comes with it. Then mix the glut 50:50 with distilled water and you get two gallons. One gallon of this lasted me right at one year dosing a 16G and a 29g. ALOT cheaper than buying Excel. The only plants I've seen hurt by Glut were some Vals and Anacharis. OS.