Dennerle Co2

Hi everyone. This is my first post here. I have owned a Tropical tank now for 5 years. I have a Juwel 180 litre tank and have just bought a dennerle Co2 setup for it. I say just bought, i actually bought it 5 months ago and its been up and running now for about 4 months. I am putting out about 20 bubbles a minute.Thats what it says in the book to acheive max results. I have not noticed any chance in the plants at all. Yes they are sorta green but not grwing at all. I`m also using fluid plant food which i think is the only thing thats keeping them alive. I do regular water changes also and the tank is very clean. All the fish thrive and have had no deaths for quite some time. Any imput would be appreciated........THANKS......Pete... I have enclosed a picture of the dennerle equip for you to see the model that i am using.

what plants have you got? whats your lighting?

how often are you doing water changes? also do you have air bubbles or any other surface movement?

Ian H said:

what plants have you got? whats your lighting?

Click to expand...

Aye, that would be useful to know.
When the CO2 bubbles enter the diffuser, do they nearly disappear before hitting the surface? Or are they still quite large?
You didn't mention what type of liquid fertiliser you use? An all round good one is Tropica Nutrition +, as this contains trace elements and Nitrogen and Phosphorus.

yeah i would reccomend tropica. I dont use tropica + just normal but its made my plants alot greener (it's under the aquacare brand in the uk)

20 bubbles a minute sounds very low to me!!! I would expect 60 to be about the minimum needed.

Are you using a drop checker? and if so what are you using in it. What colour does it show?

Andy

Ian H said:

what plants have you got? whats your lighting?

how often are you doing water changes? also do you have air bubbles or any other surface movement?

Click to expand...

Hi Thanks for reply Ian. There are 2 x 30 watt tubes in it. A daylite and warmlite. The plants i have in it are Amazon swords and to be honest i`m not sure what the others are called. I do water changes every 3-4 weeks and take out about 40-50 litres each time. I have a air pump running all day. I have the lights on a timer. Comes on at 9am and goes off at 9pm. Also the Co2 is on all day and off at night. The air pump is connected to the timer also so is running while the lights are on and off at night. Now i`m quite a beginner when it comes to plants so go easy on me. No when it comes to drop checkers, well i don`t use one. I have not checked the amount of co2 in the tank. Just went with the dennerle 20 bubbles a minute.

RadaR said:

Ian H said:

what plants have you got? whats your lighting?

Click to expand...

Aye, that would be useful to know.
When the CO2 bubbles enter the diffuser, do they nearly disappear before hitting the surface? Or are they still quite large?
You didn't mention what type of liquid fertiliser you use? An all round good one is Tropica Nutrition +, as this contains trace elements and Nitrogen and Phosphorus.

Click to expand...

Yes the bubbles are very tiny when they hit the surface. I am using the difuser that came with the kit. I am using King British plants food. Maybe the problem is the air pump.

Its a Rio 180 with 3/4 Gravel and 1/4 Sand.

you want to be running the air pump at night not during the day

By having it on at the same time as the CO2 your just driving it all out

Thanks for that. I have just put the air pump onto a timer for lights out time.

Okay, this is how you make sure you get good growth, throw out Dennerle's instructions, buy a drop checker, dkn4 and some reactant, Increase your co2, start with 40bpm and slowly (altering it once every 2 hours and by a tiny amount) up it until you get your drop checker a nice green colour.
Set it on your timer to come one 2 hours before your lights come on and to go of at the same time as the lights.
Turn of your air pump, forget about it, most planted tanks have no use for them.
Considerations, make sure you have good water movement and surface agitation, if your relying on your filter, make sure it's the biggest filter you can get your hands on.
You may want to swap the Dennerle diffuser for something else, a rhinnox 2000 or 1000 and place this where the bubbles will get trapped and blown about the tank.
Consider changing to PMDD dosing or EI, if this doesn't appeal tropica TPN+ is a very good option and think about increasing water changes, 50%+ every week or 2.
If you don't see an increase in growth after this I'm at a loss.
Then it could be a matter of increasing your light, doing this will need a high biomass to be present though.

or follow George Farmers tank with similar lighting. Definately ditch that King British. I never used it even when I could get it free working for Sinclair (who make KB products) abosolutely rubbish stuff.

http/www.fishforums.net/content-page/172...ination/page/0/

Andy

I just have one problem with doing away with the air pump. I turned it off this afternoon and by early evening all the fish were swimming at the top as if gasping for air. Any ideas why this is so??

Okay so leave the air pump on. Don't want the fishies to suffocate...