the saga of the green water (pg2)

Jen

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Has anyone seen these, or heard of them?
Carbo Plus

I have found it somewhere for much much cheaper than that (in the affordable range).

I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on them.
Thanks
 
yep i've seen and heard of them, thats about the extent of it though i'm afraid.

never used one or spoken to anyone who has.

anyone else have any experience with these. i'd be interested to know as well.
 
I dont own one and probably never will but from what i can gather from reading elsewhere is that they are a waste of money, apperantly for the system to work at all for you, your water needs to have a very high Kh value, if you dont have a high Kh value the results from them are mediocre and will not give you enough co2, they also have to be refilled with new blocks about every 4 months on a 40 gallon tank and the refills are about $50 US Dollars which works out at $12.50 per month on co2, so very expensive.

The general consensus seems to be to buy a normal pressurised system as it quickly works out a lot cheaper if you are spending $150 Dollars for refills each year (and thats only for the refills, it doesnt take into account the high initial startup price, which would buy you a pressurised co2 system in the first place) and for bigger tanks the refills are going to work out even more expensive.

But apperantly they work by creating co2 by taking the Kh in the water, so your water has to be hard to start with, if your water is soft they wont really work for you or give lesser results.
 
My Kh, as tested last night was 5°. I don't know where that stands in high or low.

The unit I'm looking at is actually on ebay, and is currently at $30 CAD, where my LFS sells it at $250 CAD. If I can get it under say, $60 I'll give it a go. Anything higher and it won't be worth it, with shipping and whatnot. My co2 levels are insainly low right now, so I need to do something. I would do the pressurized system... I just don't know where to get it and how to hook it up.
 
According to this article if your PH is below 4.5 (your is very close) you should pay special attention to your PH - which indicates that this is quite low indeed.

Edit: that was meant to be 4.5
 
I just don't know where to get it and how to hook it up.

now come on canoechiq where do you think you'd start.

a thread like "need help fitting pressurised co2 system" in planted or hardware would soon set you straight.

all i can say is if they were any good lots of people would have them. i'd go pressurised if yeast isn't doing the job for you
 
hmmm i asked about em before and i remember somebody telling me that they didn't really up the C02 too much :)

a look at something like the sochting carbonator might be an option but its a bit expensive compared to going DIY which IMHO can do the job ;)
 
jimbooo said:
now come on canoechiq where do you think you'd start.

a thread like "need help fitting pressurised co2 system" in planted or hardware would soon set you straight.

all i can say is if they were any good lots of people would have them. i'd go pressurised if yeast isn't doing the job for you
This thread was asking about the other one i found. When I find out that this won't do, and if I decide not to go the pop bottle route, don't you worry. That'll be the first thing I ask here. :nod:

I just thought I would inquire on this other thing. Anything to save a buck, or $200
 
bloozoo2 said:
According to this article if your PH is below 4.5 (your is very close) you should pay special attention to your PH - which indicates that this is quite low indeed.

Edit: that was meant to be 4.5
I had a look at that article, and I'm a bit confused.

I'm very low on CO2 - like 3mg/L. So I need to increase that... alot.

It says to decrease the kH, you inject CO2. The kH is only at 4 to begin with, and I up the CO2, then the kh will go even lower? And then the higher the CO2, the lower my pH goes as well.

That doesn't seem quite right to me. Am I wrong?
 
A few things my friend.

Firstly, you can inject CO2 safely with a KH as low as 2 degrees. I know this as I, and many others (Amano for one) have done so. I stick to KH 3 to 3.5 now though but that's another story (pH related). In short your KH of 5 is perfectly safe.

Secondly, injecting CO2 will have virtually NO influence on your KH. CO2 only changes pH, this is how and why we can work out our CO2 levels from using pH and KH levels. Higher CO2 = lower pH. Lower CO2 = higher pH. Simple. I use this CO2 table. http://www.floridadriftwood.com/page.asp?id=16

Thirdly, you do need more CO2. I set-up a DIY CO2 rig at the weekend for a friend with a 70 Gallon and he is getting 30ppm!!

The whole lot cost less than £5 ($10).

You want to know how right?

You need -

2 litre plastic fizzy drink bottle with cap
Silicon sealant
6mm drill or similar
3 metre silicon airline/tubing
lots of sugar
dried yeast
bi-carbonate of soda
teaspoon
funnel
weighing scales
measuring jug
water

1. Drill 6mm or slightly less in bottle cap.
2. Insert airline an inch or so in hole and seal with sealant.
3. Allow to dry.
4. Recipe - 400 grams sugar, 2 level teaspoons yeast, 4 level teaspoon bi-carb, 1.6 litre tepid water.
Pour in sugar, add yeast, add bi-carb, add tepid water. Use funnel if necessary (less mess).
5. Attach airline to your Nutrafin diffuser.
6. Watch CO2 bubble away after a few minutes.

This mixture should give a fairly constant output for approx 7 to 10 days.

You could obviously make 2 or bottles up and couple the airlines to the same diffuser using a 2-way splitter.

Good luck.
 
You are a life saver George. I have been going over the diy topics and they all seemed very compicated, and needed some fixtures that I don't have/can't get anywhere around me.

Beauty of this is... I have every thing at home already! Score.
Thanks a million pal. I'll be doing this tonight.
 
Man. You weren't lying. About 25 minutes after hooking it up, there were bubbles. When I hooked up the nutrafin unit to my old 35g, it look almost 36 hours before anything happened.

I'm going to test my pH tonight, to see how much of a drop I get - it was huge last time... 7.6 - 6.2. Luckily I had no losses.

Now, should I worry about turning the CO2 off at night? Will it really make any difference?
 
I just tested things, so after about 5 hours, the pH dropped to 7.2, and the kH went up to 5. That puts me at 9.5 instead of 3. I'm getting there!
 

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