Would You Use Co2?

[Ps3Steveo]

I'm going to be setting up a large planted tank in the near future and as it will be housing Discus I'll be using Vallis, Swords, Cypts and Anubias. Now after researching Echinodorus Tenellus to create a nice lawn effect over time, most sites say high light and good substrate are required but doesn't mention CO2. I've been wondering if I will be able to grow these varieties of plants and get the desired lawn effect with out CO2 and just with good substrate and ferts and should I go high light or low light, CO2 or no CO2?

As far as I know if you have high light you need CO2 or is that not correct, I'm beginning to wonder after looking through some journals as the riverbank one has high light and no CO2 now? Confused.com

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Anyone???

 

[micko]

I've always wanted to use co2 as I've seen how well it works in tanks with lots of plants. Money was just the issue. I've now decided to make my own using a fire extinguisher. I'm going to try it first on a plant tank with no fish in it to see how well it works.

I've also heard the same that using if your using stronger lights its better if you do use co2 and if you have low light then there's really no much point.

 

[FishyWishie]

Very much depends as micko said on your lighting levels.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Will be around 100 gallons and will have around 200 watts of lighting. Dunno about t5's and t8's whats the difference? Pretty sure they're t8's.

 

[FishyWishie]

# T8 = eight eighths of an inch in diameter or one inch thick
# T5 = five eighths of an inch in diameter or five eighths of an inch thick

Good article about T5/T8

Would that be UK or US gallons ? makes a diff in the calculation you see

WPG is very easy to work out.
take the total watts of your lights and divde by the total of U.S. galls

 

[Ps3Steveo]

I know how to work out WPG lol been in the fish keeping world a long time works out 1.82 WPG, but then people say dont use the WPG rule on tiny or large tanks.

Its 119 Gallon Juwel Vision 450 with 4 x T8 54 Watt lamps.

 

[FishyWishie]

My tank is 370L and I've got about 1.9 WPG using T5 (but T5/T8 doesn't really matter for the overall decision making) the level your at you don't NEED to use it but you could, and your light is enough in my opinion that depending on plant types chosen they would benefit from it. My growth has improved since I added FE C02 but the plants were doing ok without it just I wanted better growth etc.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Cool cheers dude.

 

[RadaR]

You cant get 54W t8 bulbs. You can get 58W t8 bulbs but these are 5ft long.

You can get 54W t5s though, these are 1149mm long.

For argument sake, lets say they are 54W t5s. I rekon you could see carbon deficiencies in your plants with that much light. Using only 2 bulbs gets rid of this problem. So might floating plants.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Cool well as far as I'm aware you can get 4 T8's in a Juwel Vision 450 so maybe they're the 58W ones, but either way its more likely I'll see carbon problems so I'll go with a lowish dose of CO2 then I think.