CO2

[orientmatt]

I currently have a heavily planted 30g tank, which has been running for a couple of months now. At first I had plenty of plant growth that was very vigorous. But I've noticed recently that some of them are starting to struggle and my tank is beginning to look increasingly bare.

Basically, I think the problem is CO2 related and want to do a DIY setup. I have read about them and ready to go. The only thing I dont really understand is the diffuser thingy. Can anyone explain more please.

(As I know someone will ask, my lighting is a 25w, 30" flourescent bulb)

 

[houndour]

25 watts over a 30 gallon is less than 1 WPG, so you probably don't need CO2.

Your plants may be not doing so well maybe because they need more light to thrive. Or maybe nutrients.

But to answer your question anyway, the idea of a diffuser is that CO2 does not dissolve in the water very well, so if you just ran a tube into the tank the CO2 bubbles would go straight to the surface and burst and you wouldn't make much difference to the CO2 levels in your water.

So you need a diffuser to keep the bubbles in the water for longer.

Hagen do a ladder which comes with the Hagen Nutrafin kit that a lot of people get. I dont think you can buy the ladder separately in the UK.

gf has had success by inserting the tube into the filter flow. There's a picture in this post that explains it better: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=107901

 

[paulioo]

Yeah i think the problem may be more to do with your lighting. You will only be able to grow a certain amount of low light plants with 1wpg.

The reason your plants were thriving at the start may be because when the plants where in the shop they'd be under really high lighting and probably receiving a healthy dose of all the nutrients they require. When you take them out of that environment and place them in our own tanks which dont meet the same standards of light and nutrients, the plants will feed off their reserves. Basically all the nutrients the plant requires that are stored within the cells of the plant. It now seems that the plants have used up their reserves and the result is the plants aren't looking as healthy as they used to be.

As for CO2 although all plants will benefit from CO2 addition, but there will not be any noticable change until the lighting gets up to around 2 watts per gallon. So adding it won't give you the results you desire.

IMO If you like the plants you've got and you want to make them as nice as they used to be, then i'd up your lighting to around 2wpg.

If this isn't possible on your tank or if you dont want to pay the extra expense then you could look up some low light plants and have an equally impressive planted tank with your current lighting setup.

Hope this helps a little.
Paul.

 

[orientmatt]

Ok thanks for the help. I've got some flora boost stuff so i'll just try that a bit more often. Have you got any other tips on improving nutrients as I don't think i'll be able to change my lighting really.

p.s. Will the fact that my tank is only a foot deep improve the light situation a bit.

 

[zig]

p.s. Will the fact that my tank is only a foot deep improve the light situation a bit.

Best thing you can do is to use the correct reflector for the tube, its also the cheapest way to improve your lighting other than adding extra tubes.