Novice with CO2 system

[Dainius]

Hi all,

I am happy that I found this portal and I hope with your help I will become your community member
Need your advices with using CO2 system it is my first system, several years I had aquarium without CO2 but I didnt' achieve very good results with my plants. I know that CO2 needs to turn on ~2 h before starting the light and turn off 1 h before turning off the light. But my question is when and how better to use fertilizers? My light turns on in the morning from 6:30 h until 08:00h and after 15h until 21h. Fertilizers use in the morning or evening? before turn on light or not very important when?

I hope your advices

 

[Aiken Drum]

It doesn't really matter what time of day to dose fertiliser. It's not like a product that goes in the water and gradually expires. It goes in the water and stays there until the plants have used it.

What kind of plants are you keeping? Is it heavily or lightly planted? What type of lighting? What fertiliser are you planning on using? Do you have a nutrient rich substrate? Is your aquarium heavily or lightly stocked with fish?

This is all about balance. You want to balance the CO2, nutrients and lights to the plants you want to keep.

If you are going for a high tech set up you want injected CO2, high powered lighting, nutrient rich substrate, lots of fertiliser dosing and high nutrient demand plants that will consume the nutrients, and utilise the CO2 and light. If you don't have all these things your system will be out of balance and result in unhealthy plant growth and excess algae.

If you are going for a low tech set up, again you need things in balance. You want to keep low demand plants that will do well with the lower carbon needs, lower light levels and lower nutrient availability. If you just try and throw in CO2, or a high powered light, let nutrients get out of control or try to keep high demand plants you again end up with everything out of balance that again results in unhealthy plant growth and excess algae.

You might want to look into estimative index for a fertiliser dosing and water change routine. This ensures that a lack of nutrients is never an issue throughout the week with a daily routine of nutrient dosing, and then a big water change at the end of the week to remove them and prevent them going to excess.

You might want to look at duckweed index. This is a method of keeping duckweed in your aquarium to give a visual clue as to whether there is enough nutrients for healthy plant growth. Plants on the surface have access to highest light and atmospheric CO2, so these are always in abundance and nutrients will be the limiting factor. If duckweed is healthy then you know there is enough nutrients for all your plants. If the duckweed isn't healthy it must be down to a lack of nutrients, and there may also be an issue for your submerged plants too.

 

[Dainius]

I just started aquarium 120 L and planted new plants:

• Sagittaria
• Ludwigia
• Bacopa
• Hygrophila

Lighting: A801 - Aquasabi - 4442 Lumen 8000K (I use 80% power 7h/day)
Fertiliser: I plan to use NPK-BOOSTER 500 ml | Global Aquatic (every day 5ml)
Substrate: I don't remember
CO2: yes I have
CO2 indicator: yeas I have

Main your Advices for this situation.

 

[Aiken Drum]

I think you are over complicating things for those plants. They are low demand plants that should do fine with a standard aquarium light, sand or gravel substrate, and time to adjust to a new environment. They would benefit from all in one fertiliser with your weekly water change and root tabs.

They are all low demand plants. They don't need much in the way of nutrients, light or carbon. They aren't going to benefit from injected CO2, excessive nutrient dosing or high powered lighting as they simply don't have the growth rates to utilise them. All you will grow is algae. Either go all out high tech with plants that will utilise all the light, nutrients and carbon, or go low tech and keep things simple.

I'll tell you a little story about one of my wife's friends. She keeps rare plants, makes a little money propagating, growing and selling them online. She understands plants. She also keeps an aquarium but her plants weren't doing well, saw my aquatic plants thriving and wanted to know what she was doing wrong. Like you she started fiddling to try and improve things, and started with a planted substrate, and when that did nothing CO2 was next, all to no effect. What we did was simplify things down. We kept the substrate, but removed the CO2. We kept plants that we knew where low demand, and most importantly gave everything time. The plants are healthy. They don't grow fast, but that's not the point. You want healthy growth, not fast growth.

 

[Dainius]

this story about me. I want to have beauty aqua plants but I can't reach it. I will try use CO2 and see what hapen. Maybe after several weeks aquarium status will change. Thank you for your lessons