Another CO2 injection question....

[Lonewolfblue]

Well, we all know plants use O2 at night. But I was wondering if anyone has tried this. Instead of using an airstoone at night, why not run the CO2 system to a t-connector, and have CO2 coming in one side and O2 coming in on the other, both going to your reactor. Could this be a possibility?

 

[JRagg]

Do you mean like a pressurized O2 bottle?

 

[Lonewolfblue]

No, run your pressurized CO2 into one inlet and your air pump into the other inlet.

 

[fish_4_all]

I don't see why not. Couldn't hurt anything and could help prevent gassing off CO2 from surface disruption although I have heard that the surface disruption is the best thing for oxygenation.

After all I believe someone said that CO2 and O2 levels don't change because of each other. Saturation is dictated by other factors and not the gases themselves.

 

[src]

One big issue is pressure differential. First off, you need check valves on both incoming lines. Second, if the pressure from your O2 side is much higher than the pressure from the CO2 side, none of the CO2 will enter the line.

I am considering a T to an airstone, with a timer based system. During the day, the air pump will be off, and the CO2 solenoid will be open. At night, the CO2 will shut off, and the pump will turn on. This is for a 29G tank that will be using DIY CO2. On the bigger tank using pressurized CO2, I will still have the O2/CO2 switchoff, just not sharing an airstone.

Finally, the CO2/O2 mix (if you are running both at the same time) will bubble straight to the surface - very quickly, since any CO2 that gets dissolved in the water will immediately be carried to the surface in the current, and outgass into the air.

One or the other at a time, not both.