co2 Help

[Jason7894561230]

Hey
As many of you know i have a little shrimp tank and i wanted my plants to grow a bit better. So i have in there some anubias that is killing me on how slow it growss. Hair grass that i want to make a nice clump in the corner. Amazon broad sword that is growing well. A banana lilly that is beautiful and is shooting a lot of leaves. And some ludwigia that is growing allright.
I was just wondering the beet method of co2 in the tank all help welcome

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Faile]

What size aquarium is this?

 

[HN1]

DIY is an option, but has inherent risks too especially in a small tank.

Anubias are extremely slow growers, CO2 may help a bit but it's still going to grow slowly.

 

[Jason7894561230]

The tank is a 10 gal long

 

[fort384]

For that size tank, the cheapest (at least for startup cost) would be to make your own DIY CO2 setup. Something like this:

Could be setup for less than $15 (including a good supply of yeast).

If you plan to stick with the hobby for awhile and you have some cash on hand, than go with a pressurized system. For less than a couple hundred bucks, you could have a pressurized system setup with a pH meter on the selenoid that will make for a very easy dosing method. I have pressurized running on my 5 gal tank, and I haven't touched anything on it (literally) for over a year. On such a small tank, the CO2 tank lasts over a year. '

Here is a pic of my pressurized system. The green thing hanging on the top left of the cabinet is the pH meter.

With either method, you are not going to see much more growth on your anubias. It is just a really slow growing plant. However, any and all of your plants would benefit from CO2 injection. It is not a requirement for low and medium light tanks, but in my experience, makes a big difference in plant growth and health.

 

[Jason7894561230]

Thanks for that Fort me and my Dad are going to do it on the weekend!

 

[ChizerBunoi]

Just be very cautious that you monitor your tank closely throughout the day and first thing in the morning. There is no controls with diy co2 and if there is not enough oxygen exchange at night, the shrimp could be jumping out of the surface.

 

[meegosh]

If you notice the shrimp gasping at the surface in the morning then you can run an airstone at night. Some people do this even if they don't notice any gasping but IMHO I think it is a waste of money. I run my pressurized at ~30ppm and never had any gasping problems with it being just on a timer. I have it turn on around an hour before the lights come on and then out 30 minutes before lights out.

 

[Jason7894561230]

I run an airstone 24/7 and i amped it up to full

 

[meegosh]

Running an airstone with CO2 is counterproductive. The bubble wand will be off gasing your CO2. You will want it on a timer to turn on a night, if at all.

 

[fort384]

Steve is right... you don't want an airstone running when you are trying to inject CO2.

 

[Jason7894561230]

Ok thanks for that i didnt know that