Permanent Test: Blue All Day, Green In Morning?

[nry]

Morning all,

Yesterday morning I setup my permanent CO2 test with AE 4dkh water and bromo blue. When it went in the tank at ~9am it was a deep blue colour.

CO2 started ~12, lights came on a 2pm.

I saw minimal change in the colour of the test for the whole day, it never went close to green. I did gradually up the bubble count every few hours and then wait a few hours to see if the test changed but nothing happened.

CO2 went off at 10pm when the lights went off.

I checked this morning and the test is a 'perfect' green colour, but CO2 has been off for hours.

I am curious if this is related to the plants releasing CO2 overnight? I am also thinking that the diffuser I have is a) Too big and B) the tank may be driving off a lot of CO2 from the filter as I am 'supposed' to be using ~4bpm but even at 1bpm little change was noticed with the test.

I have a Rhinox 1000 on order from eBay which is a better size for my tank, but I am also thinking of better places for the diffuser in the tank: it is currently placed directly under the filter outlet (Juwel Rekord 60 with built-in filter) so the bubbles go up then get pushed along the top water level for ~6".

Comments anyone?

 

[SuperColey1]

Rhinox 1000 is for 60Ltr tanks or less.

The drop checker will take time to measure the CO2. Normally it will be an hour or 2 behind the CO2 level in the water.

The more you fill it the longer it will take.

Therefore only but 3ml of solution in it

I used to fill mine as much as I could until I realised it was taking ages. lol

Also the first day may a little of a misread.

Mine is normally green in the morning and then gradually during the day darkens until lights go off (this is with 2 Nutrafins and 1 DIY, with pressurised it is blue all night and then after the CO2 comes on it starts to change 1 hour later)

Andy

 

[nry]

It has been green all day, possibly edging towards yellow, tomorrow will be the best check. The main issue with running a really low bubble count is the time required for the pressure to build up sufficiently to force bubbles through the ceramic disc. Maybe this will change with a smaller diffuser as there is less air space in the diffuser to pressurise. Once the whole setup has run for a number of days I should find the 'perfect' setting. I'm now on ~15 bubbles/minute, I will likely reduce this further tomorrow and maybe again once the R-1000 has arrived.

The tank is 54litres (without decor and filled to the max) so the Rhinox 1000 is a perfect size. My current diffuser is almost twice the size and CO2 only bubbles in ~4 streams from the ceramic disc.