Renovating my tank

[Nomad]

Hi All,

As you may have seen in my "Hi" Thread, that I'm going to be renovating my tank this weekend. Its a rio 180, had it about 6 years.

It currently at my parents house which is about a hour away from mine. To be honest its been neglected for about a year!

Last reports are that its "algaefied". So I will be giving it a good old clean. I have an internal filter, that comes with it,a and a fluval 305 underneath.

I was going to try and make it a community tank with lots of plants. I realise this is a hard task! After 8 years of fish keeping I have only managed to establish a sparsely populated (with) planted tank.

I never used CO2 before, and I'm not really up for spending a lot on CO2 Systems. I was going to be doing a DIY one, which I have seen on this forum. Being a newb to Co2, I understand the principle, but have a few questions on C02 and general questions on the setup.

1. Will I need to disconnect the co2 from the system at night? I understand that plants use O2 at night, so having the Co2 during the night would not be beneficial.

1.a. IS a DIY system effective?

2. How do I calculate how much sugar, yeast, water (also heard of BiCarb being used) to out in the bottle, or is this all trial and error? Does it depend on the size of the bottle as well?

3. With a planted tank and the fluval 305, where should i have the inlet and outlet pipe? Is there a good place to have this? I should imagine its better not to have it next to some plants? Would a spray bar be better?

4. I'm a little confused with the lighting aspect. From reading various info it seems I'm looking for at least 2wpg for my tank? Then I read things like kelvins as well???

I gather I need something in between 5000k-10,000k range. Perhaps some one could enlighten me?

5. The substrate I have chosen as well is seachem Flourite. It had good reviews when I bought it about a 3 months ago.... Would you recommend this? I bought it for its colour, and what the reviews said about it..... I've seen people mention other substrates on here.....

By the way the tank only has about 5 fish in there at present, few neons and a dwarf gourami. Looking to stock over the coming month with more tetras, and some others, which I haven't thought into yet.

6. As I'm moving this, and my understanding is that the bacteria in the tank, is mostly confined to the filter media and the substrate, will this in your opinion lead (putting a new substrate and lack of oxygen for the filter media) to deficient bacteria in the tank to support it, or as there is only 5 five should it be ok?

Sorry for so many questions and such a long post, but I really want this to look good, and want the best advice from you guys, to help me in this project!

I'm sure I'll have some more questions later about plants!

cheers!

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

Ok I looked up rio 180 and its 180 liters, so ~47.5 gallons.

Diy CO2 can be hard to do on larger tanks like yours, but people do make it work.
1. with DIY CO2 most leave it constantly in the tank, you cant just pinch the hose or with a valve b/c the pressure will build in the bottle and cause issues. I think a good idea would be to have an air pump that is on a timer and runs at night when the lights go off(helps off gas the CO2). Yes it is kinda wasteful.

2. it depends on the bottle size and preference to how strong or long lasting you want it as you cant really have both.

4. yes at least 2 wpg as that. Kelvin is just what color the bulb looks like,
5,000k-10,000k is good and usable for plants.

6. If you changing substrate it may be best and easiest to move the fish to a large container, put the heater and filter on it. The do what you want with the tank and move everything back. Now make sure the temps are similar which may include swapping the heater back and forth for awhile to get both the same temp.

 

[Nomad]

Thanks Speedy, correct its 180l.

Have been reading further into Co2, and see that its quite hard to dissolve in water. Less so than O2. Rather than putting the outlet of the co2 in the outlet of the internal pump I probably should get one of these, just for the diffuser? Or try and get a diffuser separately.

Co2 Natural Plant System at UKPetSupplies.com

That I assume would help it dissolve into water more effectively.

A lot of people mention that they have their DIY systems with two 2l bottles. Can I assume this is better for a tank like mine?

I was thinking of just disconnecting the co2 at night, and letting it blow out into the room.

Thanks

Nomad

 

[SpeedEuphoria]

Thanks Speedy, correct its 180l.

Have been reading further into Co2, and see that its quite hard to dissolve in water. Less so than O2. Rather than putting the outlet of the co2 in the outlet of the internal pump I probably should get one of these, just for the diffuser? Or try and get a diffuser separately.

Co2 Natural Plant System at UKPetSupplies.com

That I assume would help it dissolve into water more effectively.

A lot of people mention that they have their DIY systems with two 2l bottles. Can I assume this is better for a tank like mine?

I was thinking of just disconnecting the co2 at night, and letting it blow out into the room.

I'm not positive about this but I think for your size tank you may need more than 2x 2l bottles, more like 3 or even 4 bottles. This is something I wish I could find info on. I know most use 2x 1l bottles for 10gallon tanks, so that would mean 2l diy CO2 per 10gallons and would put you needing between 4 and 5 2l bottles. No this is affected by how well its diffused in the water, so if you use something like in that link I posted then you may be able to use just 3-4x 2l bottles. If you dont use any type of diffuser then you will prob want 4-5x 2l bottles. Let the experts post more info on this.

Thanks

Nomad

I'm not too up on CO2 yet but have been reading around. I guess that disconnecting it at night should work? I think its just more work and in order to not forget I think thats why people use the air pump on a timer at night so its more of an automated process.

Have a look at this as it seems to do a great job of putting CO2 into the water.
Tiny super efficient CO2 reactor - Page 2 - Do It Yourself Aquarium Projects - Aquatic Plant Central

I'm not sure if the volume of CO2 thats needed is linear. I know for a 10 gallon tank 2x 1l bottles is mostly used, so that 2l of DIY CO2 per 10 gallons. That would mean that you would need 4-5 2l bottles for your sized tank. So depending on how well its "dissolved" you could go with 4 for with something in that link I posted or need 5x 2l bottles for just a regular method. Please let the experts come in and post more info about how many 2l bottles of CO2 you will need to run.

 

[Nomad]

Thanks for your help.

It seems the key is getting the co2 dissolved into the water, rather than having lots of bubbles.

I read the link you gave, and sounds interesting, but judging by what people were saying, it seems they use a head to disperse the bubbles into the water. My concern is (and I know nothing really) is that the bubbles of co2 are not fully dissolved. But then what is fully dissolved co2? I don't know. Any one got any thought on that?

Also, as the bubbles are flying around the tank, i fear it may interfere with the drop checker. Again, it depends on what dissolved co2 is.......

 

[Purrbox]

You would need about 10 of that store bought kit (which is DIY CO2 in a pretty package) to get sufficient CO2 diffusion for your aquarium needless to say you could go pressurized for that amount of money. The packaging states that they're good for upto a 20 gallon aquarium, BUT that's for a much lower CO2 target than the 30ppm that you'll usually find recommended around the forums. If you insist on going DIY CO2, then your best bet is to truly go with DIY and build it. As SpeedEuphoria mentioned, you'll need 4-5 2 Liter bottles and a good method of diffusion.

 

[Nomad]

Hi Purrbox,

Thanks for your comments. I see what your saying. I just meant the diffuser for it, not the whole setup. The diffuser is the last stage, which keeps the co2 in the water for a while longer, than it would be blasting out a power head.

That make sense?

I was thinking of using the diffuser on the DIY system.

Would a 4l bottle be better than using 4-5 different bottles? I assume I would make quadruple the ingredients in the 4l bottle? Or is it better to have 4-5 separate bottles?

 

[Purrbox]

You're looking at total volume for CO2 generation. So you could use four to five 2 Liter bottles, or three 4 Liter bottles. The mix would need to be doubled for the larger bottles, but it would still work well. You do want at least two bottles so that you can rotate when you change out the mix. This allows for steadier CO2 levels.

I believe that the kit you linked to has the ladder for CO2 diffusion? If so this is one of the best Passive Diffusion methods, but most any half way descent Powered diffusion method is going to be better. By using a powerhead to chop up the bubbles and make them smaller the CO2 will diffuse much faster, so prolonged water contact is not as necessary.

 

[Nomad]

Thanks Purrbox, when you say rotate, is it recommended that i stagger activating them? so rather than starting them all at once, maybe start 2, and then a 3rd one a week later, so that there is continuous production of co2?

Correct it has the ladder. So you recommend a powered diffusion method? I'll have a trawl and look for that on the forum.

 

[Purrbox]

Since a basic CO2 mix lasts about 2 weeks, with three bottles I'd probably look at starting one bottle every 5 days and continuing the rotation that way. It'll give you the steadiest CO2 levels that way.

My personal favorite is the Inline Reactor since it keeps equipment out of the aquarium and is very efficient. It's very easy and inexpensive to build. If you check the DIY section you'll find several threads on this. Another good option (if you don't mind a fine spray of bubbles) is the mist method. This is probably the most efficient method, but isn't visually appealing to everyone.

 

[Nomad]

Brilliant thanks Purrbox.

I'll stagger activating them.

I'll think about an inline reactor, sounds interesting.....

One more question! Even though I have flourite as a sub, will it still require fertz? If so, can you recommend any? or will this depend on weekly tests to see what i'm deficient in?

 

[Purrbox]

While having a nutrient rich substrate is helpful, if you're running high light you'll find that you still need to dose fertilizer. Dry ferts are the most economical way to go. Reg Grigg has a combo pack that has everything you'll need.

There are many ways to go with dosing. A couple of common options are to dose to target levels (involves a fair amount of testing, probably more than weekly) or to use EI (Estimative Index).