Will stopping CO2 cause a mass die off?

[kieran01pd2016]

Bit of a silly question but was just on my mind...

I've been running CO2 on my tank for the last month or so and have seen some great growth (almost too much lol).

I was just wondering, if I were to take out the CO2 from the tank, will the plants that have thrived with it have a die off due to the change in CO2 availability? Or will they just slow down/stop growing?

 

[anewbie]

When i turned off co2 a while ago it caused massive imbalance with plants and algae that took months to clean up. I would try decreasing co2 slowly over several months.

 

[kieran01pd2016]

When i turned off co2 a while ago it caused massive imbalance with plants and algae that took months to clean up. I would try decreasing co2 slowly over several months.

I see... I wasn't planning on stopping it for the time being, just thinking about in the future; but I'll keep that in mind!

 

[anewbie]

I see... I wasn't planning on stopping it for the time being, just thinking about in the future; but I'll keep that in mind!

Basically without co2 the plants can't support their current growth and they need to 'adjust' which takes a long time.

 

[MuddyWaters]

I stopped using CO2 in a 15 gallon tank I have. Actually, I would use it for a week and then stop for a bit, then use it, then stop (I was using a cheapy set up that required some work to get it going again).

When I stopped I got black beard algae big time. However, I also wasn't keeping up with water changes enough, so my nitrates were high- basically a recipe for algae heaven.

One thing to consider if what kind of plants you have- if you have plants that do fine with no CO2, my opinion is that if you keep up with water changes to keep the nitrates low and adjust fertilization to compensate slower growth, you might not get algae.

However, I'm staring at a new tank I set up with a bunch of algae in it and I have CO2 going and am doing EI fertilization, so I am by no means an expert with it LOL.