Co2 Glass Diffusers - Heard Of Some Problems

[jimbooo]

Hi everyone,

finally my dennerle co2 kit has arrived, complete with diffuser (simmillar to the nutrafin ladder) and permanent test etc...

george kindly gave me his glass diffuser when i robbed him of all his plants and fish last weekend as i am keen to try the micro co2 bubble theory. ie have loads of really tiny bubbles flowing through the plants as seen in most of the high tec setups on the ADA site etc...

when ordering the dennerle kit from new leaf i mentioned that i was planning on using this and the salesman was appalled. he insisted that the use of fine glass diffusers is very very bad for the livestock. apparently the tiny co2 bubbles enter the fish's gills and get trapped there basically suffocating the fish.

no i am rather dubious as to the truth behind this. obviously amano's tanks aren't full of dead fish and i know georges cardinals were fine as i have them swimming about happily in my tank as we speak. i am really only concerned for my adult angel. as her gill covers are about an inch long there is a massive gap for the bubbles to enter. if this theory is true then she'll be in trouble.

has anyone heard of this before or had any experience using fine glass diffusers coupled with bigger fish. it's all getting set up tonight so i hope i'm not about to cause any problems for my beloved angel.

thanks people
James

 

[Themuleous]

I cant say I have had hands on experience Jim but thinking about it, it seems a little strange to me. Mostly, as you say, because Amano and our new friend Justin use them with no trouble, and I'm sure they'll have used them with bigger fish like angles. And I dont think you would be able to get ADA glass diffusers if it did!

Also, should a bubble get 'stuck' in a gill, surely it'll get dissolved and not get stuck in there indefinately and as for suffocating the fish, I would have thought that for this to happen pretty much that whole surface of the fishes gills would have to get covered in bubbles?

After that if it did start to happen, would the fish just not swim to an area of the tank that don't have CO2 bubbles so it could breath properly?

Just my thoughts

Sam

 

[George Farmer]

I bet you didn't mention adding nitrates and phosphates? His head would have exploded!

CO2 micro-bubbles present no risk IME. I'm sure I would have heard about it by now if they did. Tom Barr, Takashi Amano, our very own Justin Law, Jeff Senke and countless other gurus swear by this method and that is certainly good enough for me. I'd take their word over your salesman's any day.

If tiny bubbles were a problem then surely pearling would be an issue?

Rant over. Sorry mate - too much coffee this afternoon!

 

[jimbooo]

sorry i wasn't clear enough sam.

it's not the actual bubble that causes the problem. apparently the bubble (being 100% co2) will attach to the gills. co2 is heavier than oxygen hence why if you breath in a lung full of co2 you'll be in trouble. the co2 takes priority on a molecular level over O2. i have no idea how respiration works in fish so not sure if it's relevant or not..

almost like when carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin (SP?) in humans, that red blood cell is then saturated in carbon monoxide and will never let it go and can no longer carry oxygen around the body.

am i making any sence here??#

edit: sorry george, missed that but as above.. what do you think? any biologists on here.

no i didn't mention EI lol. he asked for my KH. when i said 13 he insisted i was wasting my time injecting co2. "no i'm not" was all i could manage and just went ahead anyway lol.

 

[George Farmer]

No idea about CO2 "sticking".

I'll investigate furthur and get back to you mate.

 

[jimbooo]

cheers mate, that bit of research is a bit beyond the possibilities of "while i work". thanks i'd appreciate it.

 

[Themuleous]

I remember a bit of fish biology from GCSE (yes yes years ago ) but I really cant see it being a problem. Fish are pretty well designed and their gills are excellent at taking up O2 out of the water, even if CO2 did get lodged in there some how it would soon get pushed back out by the O2.

FYI when carbon monoxide gets stuck to human blood, it gets removed when the red blood cells carring it get broken down by the kidneys/liver (not really sure), which is why people can recover from carbon monoxide poisening. I'm sure something similar would happen in fish, not that we're talking carbon monoxide!

Will wait to see what George says.

Sam

 

[jimbooo]

thanks sam. i'm 99% sure it's irrelevant as otherwise why would ada sell them etc as mentioned. it just got me thinking thats all.

i'm still going to set it all up tonight, i'll just keep a close eye on the angel. it'll be interesting to see what george can find out though.

george: dont bust a gut mate, only if you come across something. i dont want to send you on an all night mission into the finer workings of fish respiration LOL.

 

[scott67892002]

i can't see a problem (unless you injects carbon monoxide! )

fish breath in through their mouthes and out through there gills so i doubt that any bubbles would go in through the gap in their gills!? when a fish gulps a loud of air from the surface it all comes out the top of their gills they'll be fine!

 

[George Farmer]

Well James so far I've had a very respectable mod from a specialist forum basically repeating what we already know; that if they were a risk then they wouldn't be so popular. No science yet though, but I doubt we need it.

Your salesman sounds like a typical UK planted "specialist" - they know squat about the modern planted hobby. Things will change in time, trust me.

 

[oldwhitewood]

George is right. Firstly let me say I have visited New Leaf in the past and found their display tanks to be rather poor. As a place that proports to be a planted tank specialist using dennerle equipment this struck me as rather dissappointing. It might have just been on that particular day though but their big display tank was really dull.

I did write a long post here ranting about Dennerle etc but I've just deleted it. Why? I want to focus on the positive things that are happening here, with yourself, George, Justin's work, Aqua Essentials. These are all plus points that are going to benefit our hobby in the long term and this awareness has to start somewhere, as long as we keep going other people are going to get inspired it's as simple as that.

 

[accidentaldog]

I hate to be the ever pessimist but I think with CO2 having 20x the solubility compared to O2 that this could be a valid concern. However after Googling and using the first result it seems that this is most likely not a problem. As scott67892002 said,

fish breath in through their mouthes and out through there gills

and although the CO2 bubble would be adjacent to the gill filaments, the flow of water is from the body outwards. It would seem to me that if your angelfish would begin to have a lack of O2 in its blood, it would begin to respire more quickly and therefore push the CO2 bubble off of the gills.

I, unfortunately, am not a marine biologist (my specialty is microbiology), so take that as you will. As others have said, there have been multiple aquascapes involving larger cichlids where this method is employed and this problem never seems to have been brought up.

For reference, this explains countercurrent flow for fish respiration.

 

[jimbooo]

thanks accidentaldog for taking the time to look into it for me. that makes perfect sence. it's always interesting to learn these things. i'm not comfortable disagreeing with store advice unless i actually know why theyre wrong.

the kit has been set up now and all seems fine. so i'm sure it'll be fine.

thanks again
James

 

[accidentaldog]

I'm glad that I could help. To be honest, you had me worried because I plan to use the same type of diffuser when starting compressed CO2 on my discus tank so I had to look for myself as well.

By the way, I am really looking forward to those setup pics of your Dennerle unit, so don't let me down!

AD

 

[@ombomb]

Sorry to deviate fromt he thread slightly, but would a reactor be more efficient for a larger (47.5G) tank?