co2

[m-man]

i have diy co2 and its not getting into the water, i have a Kh of 2 and a ph of 7.2, giving me like 4ppm co2, i have it bubbling into a plastic ring, to hold it,, and when it fills that up and spills out it goes into my powerhead and gets blasted out, so i dont think dispersion is the problem.
any thoughts

 

[fish_4_all]

First thing might be to diffuse it through a ceramic air stone into the powerhead so the bubbles start smaller than a big glug into the powerhead which could damage it. Also, aim your powerhead down if you can so the bubbles stay under water a little longer. Another thing could be your KH but that is an issue someone else will have to explain because I have problems with it myself. That and I just don't understand it.

 

[Purrbox]

Do you have a BioWheel Filter or are you using some kind of bubbler in the tank? Is the return of your filter causing a large amount of surface aggitation? Any of these will gas off excess CO2, and since you are using DIY CO2 with passive diffusion they'd make it near impossible to get good CO2 levels.

 

[m-man]

actually i have a bio wheel filter and i have 2 airstones in the filter, perhaps i will turn those off

 

[rich311k]

Remove the bio wheel and remove the airstones. otherwise you are just swimming uphill and will not get anywhere injecting the CO2.

 

[m-man]

isn't the biowheel important,....suppose to hold the bacteria... for nitrification?

 

[CaptnIgnit]

it does hold some bacteria, but you can get by easily without it. The substrate (gravel) holds much more along with any other filters you have. If you want to get even more just throw an algae sponge in your filter and let it sit in there. That would be more than enough surface area to replace your biowheel.

 

[Purrbox]

A lot of people believe that biowheels are more hype than anything else. Your filter pads should hold more than enough bacteria to keep you biofilter strong. Don't forget that your plants will also act as a part of the biofilter. Just keep an eye on your stats the first few days after removing the biowheel in case of a mini cycle. Water change if necessary. Most likely you won't see any problems.

 

[m-man]

sounds good, hopefully ill see some co2 improvement

 

[SkullJug]

You might also want to try putting some pipe on the outlet of powerhead, sit it vertically with the outlet pushing close to the top of the pipe. The water flow will push the bubbles down, but they will naturally try to rise.

You can get almost 100% of the co2 dissolved this way and it's easy to do, you just need the pipe and and a drill!