I have three tanks, all are cycled and have been running for a few months. My 30 G has been running since Dec (well for the past almost two years, but we moved house in Dec and I did a substrate change) My 20 Gal has been running for the past 6 months and my 5 gal Betta tank has been running since January.
Each tank has a sand bottom, and their filters are (30 Gal = Tetra Whisper Ex45, 20 G = Aqueon QuietFlow 30, 5 Gal = Marina Slim Power filter S10)
All of my tanks are planted with a mix of Amazon Sword, Rotalla (sp?), Java Fern and a variety of Vallisneria. I also have some horn wart and other floating plants.
I fertilize with a Sea chem liquid fertilizer once a week. Each tank has a full spectrum light that runs for varying times between 4 -9 hours on no particular schedule.
None of my planted tanks are doing particularly well in the growing plants department. It's to the point where I'm embarrassed about it because most of my plants are in various stages of decay.
As far as I can tell, getting a lighting schedule would help, but not to the amount needed to ensure my plants will thrive. Which has led me to believe CO2 is the ingredient missing to make my plants grow.
I've only just started reading into CO2, so there is an abundance of gaps in my knowledge. (Such as what flow would have to do with CO2 and how important it would be in the whole tank ecosystem). I read in one of the posted topics above (I Just skimmed them so I may be wrong) but a DIY yeast system wouldn't be quite what I would be looking for, due to it's inconsistency and my own newbish-ness. - Though it would be cheapest.
I was wondering if CO2 Units would help my tanks or if it would be a waste of time? Is it possible I'm missing something else what I could try before forking over the money to get a CO2 system or three? I understand CO2 is pretty important to plants if you want them to thrive but I find it hard to believe that something as simple as adding CO2 would bring my plants back from the edge. (Though CO2 is important to photo syntnesis and I assume my fish don't produce an abundance of it...)
Each tank has a sand bottom, and their filters are (30 Gal = Tetra Whisper Ex45, 20 G = Aqueon QuietFlow 30, 5 Gal = Marina Slim Power filter S10)
All of my tanks are planted with a mix of Amazon Sword, Rotalla (sp?), Java Fern and a variety of Vallisneria. I also have some horn wart and other floating plants.
I fertilize with a Sea chem liquid fertilizer once a week. Each tank has a full spectrum light that runs for varying times between 4 -9 hours on no particular schedule.
None of my planted tanks are doing particularly well in the growing plants department. It's to the point where I'm embarrassed about it because most of my plants are in various stages of decay.
As far as I can tell, getting a lighting schedule would help, but not to the amount needed to ensure my plants will thrive. Which has led me to believe CO2 is the ingredient missing to make my plants grow.
I've only just started reading into CO2, so there is an abundance of gaps in my knowledge. (Such as what flow would have to do with CO2 and how important it would be in the whole tank ecosystem). I read in one of the posted topics above (I Just skimmed them so I may be wrong) but a DIY yeast system wouldn't be quite what I would be looking for, due to it's inconsistency and my own newbish-ness. - Though it would be cheapest.
I was wondering if CO2 Units would help my tanks or if it would be a waste of time? Is it possible I'm missing something else what I could try before forking over the money to get a CO2 system or three? I understand CO2 is pretty important to plants if you want them to thrive but I find it hard to believe that something as simple as adding CO2 would bring my plants back from the edge. (Though CO2 is important to photo syntnesis and I assume my fish don't produce an abundance of it...)
