Starting Ei Soon

[qwikimpss]

So after months of saving to buy all of the necessary ingredients and stuff to start EI I finally have ordered everything and it's all on it's way (for some reason the Greg Watson site said it did not accept my card when I gave it to them, but I just looked at my online statement and it says they took money from me, I find this out after I bought the SeaChem ingredients, so I shall be calling Greg Watson soon).

My question is, I have DIY CO2 (I am saving up for pressurized and should get it within a month or two). I run two, two liter bottles, one runs a ladder-type diffuser and the other goes through an airstone in the tank. I recharge these once a week (not on the same day, one on Sunday and one on Wednesday to try to even out the CO2 as much as I can. My CO2 fluctuates between 20 to 35 ppm (sometimes up tp 45 on rare days when the bottles are really firing on all cylinders first thing in the morning). Would this relatively unstable CO2 cause any issues?

I have read and researched and come up with very different answers and I was hoping the plant gurus on here could lend me a helping hand!

 

[anodized]

45 ppm seems kind of high, are the fish gasping at the surface at that point?

Algae will grow if nutrients are left in the water and CO2 hasn't been running at all...ie, no CO2 with high light for 2 days or so.

When you go pressurized be sure to get a solenoid, pick up a timer..then you wont have to worry about it for a looong time.

 

[JamesC]

Try to keep the CO2 levels stable. It takes time for plants to adjust to a different CO2 concentration so if you are constantly changing it then the plants won't know if they are coming or going.

James

 

[qwikimpss]

Yeah, the 45 ppm, on the RARE occasion it reaches that doesn't stick around for long, just an hour or two after the lights go on in the AM because with my DIY I can't turn it off at night and it is hard to keep stable but I do what I can! I change the bottles after the lights go out so they have time overnight to start producing before lights turn on in the morning. Keeps me somewhat stable. Since I started these two bottles at the same time the levels are taking some time to get up there (they've been on the tank since last night) and as of, about 15 minutes ago my readings were:

PH : 7.0
KH: 6 degrees
Nitrate : 10 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Ammonia : 0ppm

Which would give me a CO2 reading of 18ppm....not great but not exactly that horrible either, I'm thinking of fabbing up another bottle to get a lil more performance and stability.

I just got my required Seachem chemicals yesterday but haven't started to dose them yet as my nitrate test kit is not that accurate (it goes from 5ppm, to 10 ppm, to 20 ppm, to 40 ppm etc) and I don't have a phosphate test kit so I have the Seachem Nitrite/Nitrate and Phosphate kits on the way, should hopefully be here tomorrow!

(I would like to change the name of this thread to, what it will basically become, a journal...but I don't know how! )