C02 Help!

I have recently added a few real plants into our new aquarium, I have tried plants before but they have always died but this could have been something to do with the previous tank having rubbish bulbs and I did not ever add any fertilisers. The tank I have now had two T5 HO bulbs so much better. I have looked at the c02 starter kits you can buy in the shops. I am totally confused about these, my lfs sells a starter kit for around £10. My question is is this all you need and how often would the canister need replaced. We have about 6 real small plants at the minute and have been adding terta fertiliser once a week.

Thanks in advance

What plants have you got?I may be corrected by the more expert people here,but unless they are really fast growers,I dont think co2 is really needed for only a few plants

Thanks for your reply. I am not sure what the are, i will take a picture when i get home, but the ticket i got with them said there are not fast or slow growers, they were bang in the middle. Three of them are carpet plants that have very tiny leaves and very small roots. That would be good if i did not need the c02 though. There is only 6 plants in at the moment.

IF you still decide to go for co2,then start small,I got a sera tablet system,full kit with fertilisers too,it wont hurt if you do,but with so few plants I really dont think you'd need it

Hi Debbie,

Unfortunately it's not as simple as it may first appear. There factors that need to be known/looked at b4 ppl can give you accurate advice.

We'd need to know : -

Tanks size
Filter + powerhead flow rates
Ammount of light (no. of tubes and wattage)
Type of ferts + ammounts.

As a general rule light drives plant growth. The more light the faster they grow, the faster they grow the more nuetriants and Co2 they need to keep up with their demand and to keep them healthy. So, with that mind, you wouldn't want a small Co2 system for a large tank as it would run out in weeks.

You can grow plants very will in relatively low light, using T8 bulbs. There are a lot of ppl on here that use T8's with no Co2 and only occassional ferts and get very good results. I have both low tech and high tech tanks and the low tech one is currently doing better than my high tech! I'm still working through the usual problems.

The tank is 155l open top and has 2 t5 bulbs that hang over the tank, they are on for 10 hours per day at the minute but thinking of reducing this to 8 or 9. What would you suggest? The tank is a very deep tank, think it is about 24 inches in height so i am assuming thats why it came with a strong light. We have been adding a fertiliser once a week, cant remember the name of hand but starts with a "s". Think its jst a general fert like excel stuff. Will try and get some pics of the plants up sometime today so you can identify them. The filter is an external fluval 205 and we also have the aquaone hang on filter running with it. The tank currently has 6 coris, 2 pearl gourami, 6 platies and an angel in it. Dont know if this info helps.

Lots of ppl on UKAPS run 2kg cylinder Co2 systems on tanks of that sort of size. So that they're not changing the cylinder ever couple of weeks. U'd need a regulator and possible a solenoid so that you can attach it to a timer. I believe that JBL do larger systems, as do The Green Machine (tho they are quite a bit more expensive), you can also put together your own system using a fire extinguisher as the cylinder.

Hi these are the plants I have, I have circled the real ones. Could any body identify them for me? Thanks

Ok as I expected the plants have started to die except from the plant with the large leaves. I am not green fingered at all. I am looking into buying some java moss because I seem to be ok at keeping moss, my two moss balls I bought have more than trebled in size over the past year. I cannot find any shops that sell java moss around me so can anyone recommend a good website?

Thanks

Debbie_19 said:

Ok as I expected the plants have started to die except from the plant with the large leaves. I am not green fingered at all. I am looking into buying some java moss because I seem to be ok at keeping moss, my two moss balls I bought have more than trebled in size over the past year. I cannot find any shops that sell java moss around me so can anyone recommend a good website?

Thanks

Click to expand...

http/www.java-plants.com/
I got all my plants here