As you can see from the above example, such charts, which have been a mainstay for 20 years, are influenced to a large degree by other factors than CO2.
This is not a simple issue, nor a trite one either.
EI showed folks a very simple effective method to avoid testing, maintain a clean well balanced tank.
Prior to that, I showed that PO4 does not induce algae and tested various methods to actively induce algae in an otherwise balanced healthy tank.
Redoing and defining a better method to account for the variations for the CO2 issue is no small advance.
It is actually quite large and is a long time coming.
Once folks relized that they had a safe assumption for ther nutrients and their effects on algae blooms, they could better isolate the CO2 issue.
Now folks are ready to move forward there.
I'm not privy to the "gas the fish" and then back off 0.2pH unit method personally, I've never had to do that and find it a tad unethically personally.
Sorry, not a supporter of water boarding either.........
I think watching the CO2 over the course of a day by measuring with a reference KH and pH probe is ideal.
It addresses the accuracy issue with KH.
It still uses the pH accurcay pH probe method and then we can use the pH/KH/CO2 table with far more confidence.
For many years, folks have made some rather poor assumptions in our hobby.
Questioning the basic tenents we have assumed is not a bad idea.
Especially when they do not explain the observations!!!
This was true for excess PO4 = algae. Even 12 years later, I still cannot induce any species of algae with excess PO4.
This was true for plants preferring soft water as a generalization
This was true for CO2, rather than nutrient excesses causing the algae blooms
This was true for heating cables, they still don't work as claimed.
This was true for fish not being able to handle much beyond 10-15ppm of CO2
This was true for red plants needing more Fe than green plants and other such mythical assumptions many bought into.
Some don't like it when I question things, but a lot more advances come from this than the old way of accepting and trying to make assumptions based merely on anecdotal observations rather than testing and experimentation.
That has left folks with a lot of unexplained gaps and ???'s and no real answers, nor good hypothesis. Some might sound okay, but the hypothesis still do not support the observations in nature nor in our tanks.
So when you falsify one hypothesis and reject it, you need to find an alternative one that better fits the observation/s.
The alternative hypothesis I've put forth are much harder to argue with and explain a lot more than any from the past in the hobby.
Some like to argue with me and not offer any alternative hypothesis in leiu of the old ones which cannot be supported by the older hypothesis. If you don't know and are going off some belief system rather than critically thinking, then it's no longer an argument B)
The pH prove + a reference KH solution in a larger air gap chamber will provide a very accurate relatively quick method to measure CO2 to within about 1-2ppm for any type of tank water or other confounding KH/pH issues.
I have a simple prototype which I've got a patent pending on as well as many other related versions. I have no issues with folks DIYing their own, a local plant club making a bunch etc for the hobbyists, but I've had it with companies snitching ideas from hobbyists without payment/credit etc.
I'll post the details on my site.
It's simple and can be pulled in/out of the tank easily and used in many tanks. It takes about 1/2 hour or so to get a stable reading assuming the CO2 is stable also over that same 1/2 hour peroid.
Yes, there are still assumptions, but it's better than the other methods so far.
That is how science evolves. It progressively gets better and more complex in many ways.
The next guy can figure out how to increase the response time, I have a simple way to do that, but it's harder to make and hard to keep stable, always a trade off
Regards,
Tom Barr
Silly me.
