Aquascaper 600

Had a day off work today and not a lot to do so finally put my new Co2 kit together.... and it kind of works! I need to tighten the diffuser up I think as I'm only getting big bubbles through but thats better than just the tube inflating lol. Interesting to see some actual growth between the last photo and this one which is just down to light and ferts.

My plans are to get some more plants ordered soonish I want to stick to three stems in here which will be Limnophilla, Rotala H'ra and Pearl Weed. Pearl weed will take up most of the space between the rocks on the right, Limnophilla will be all across the back and H'ra on the left.

I might change the Limnophilla to a Mirophillum Matrogrossne or a similar fine leaved stem plant? But also tempted to stick with what I know?

Next step is getting my RO machine set up at the weekend and starting to introduce that for water changes.

Wills

Looks good.

Is the diffuser/atomiser attached to a metal pipe rather than the standard air hose?
Looks neat imho.

What are the plans about co2 bps?

And will you keep filter flow as is or increase the flow to help distribute the oxygen from diffuser as it appears that the diffuser is set up opposite end of the tank from filter output.

Ch4rlie said:

Looks good.

Is the diffuser/atomiser attached to a metal pipe rather than the standard air hose?
Looks neat imho.

What are the plans about co2 bps?

And will you keep filter flow as is or increase the flow to help distribute the oxygen from diffuser as it appears that the diffuser is set up opposite end of the tank from filter output.

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Its a stainless steel casing for a ceramic disk. This is my third one of these though so eventually I might move to something else as its a bit style over substance - I wanted the steel to match the lilly pipes.

Co2 will stay at 1bps which is what was working before - this doesnt get me to the usual 30ppm that people recommend but got good results.

Really interesting that you said about flow as that is one of my issues. I was reading through this journal tonight and the front right corner is always a problem with algae for me, it must be flow thats the common factor. My plan has always been that the filter flow disperses the Co2 around the tank - do you think this is ok? Or an I doing something wrong?

Wills

Wills said:

Really interesting that you said about flow as that is one of my issues. I was reading through this journal tonight and the front right corner is always a problem with algae for me, it must be flow thats the common factor. My plan has always been that the filter flow disperses the Co2 around the tank - do you think this is ok? Or an I doing something wrong?

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Finding the right flow with a co2 set up is one of the hardest issues to get that balance right to stop dead spots and algae issues in certain areas of the tank.

Without actually seeing what the flow is like on your tank it’s pretty much impossible for someone to say if it’s right or not.

Trail and error methinks in finding out the optimum flow and placement of the diffuser.

On my previous co2 set up I put the diffuser directly under the filter flow and found that did not do much, think had the filter flow a bit too strong and it dispersed the co2 bubble to the surface too much and quickly.

Then I set up the diffuser on the side of the tank where it’s between front and back of tank and that seemed to do more for dispersion of co2 bubbles, though did get lots of hair algae on that tank unfortunately. Never did really find the right spot for flow and diffuser placement as well as finding the right dry ferts mixture to add. Became too confusing and complex in the end for me at the time.

Guess am not the right guy to ask about co2

I know what you mean - I don't really want to go down the EI route as it will just become to complex. Hoping with some softer water, no nitrates and a bit of work on the flow I can use an all in one like I do now.

In the next few months I am going to have to move this tank for some house work and when it goes back I'm tempted not to set it back up as a Co2 tank.

Wills

Wills said:

I know what you mean - I don't really want to go down the EI route as it will just become to complex. Hoping with some softer water, no nitrates and a bit of work on the flow I can use an all in one like I do now.

In the next few months I am going to have to move this tank for some house work and when it goes back I'm tempted not to set it back up as a Co2 tank.

Wills

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If you ditch the CO2 system I'm going to be very interested in how it goes. I did a whole lot of stuff with CO2 at one stage. At the end of the day I was really unsure if it did very much at all.

I couldnt decide where to run my co2 defuser either, in the end decided to put it in the uptake for the filter, so the bubbles go up through the filter and are dispersed inside it and then its already desolved in the outake flow, seem to work fine and have no issues so far. The blue checker is a stable green and my CO2 is set to run 1 hour before lights are on and then off as the lights turn off. no problems with the fish at all.

itiwhetu said:

If you ditch the CO2 system I'm going to be very interested in how it goes. I did a whole lot of stuff with CO2 at one stage. At the end of the day I was really unsure if it did very much at all.

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you know when your CO2 is working as all the plants release oxygen bubbles back into the tank,you can see it on the photo of wills tank a few posts up ,bottom right near the defuser one of the plants has bubbles all over it. what you really need with CO2 is a drop checker and tune your bubbles per second to get a stable green colour all the time the lights are on.

TrevP said:

you know when your CO2 is working as all the plants release oxygen bubbles back into the tank,you can see it on the photo of wills tank a few posts up ,bottom right near the defuser one of the plants has bubbles all over it. what you really need with CO2 is a drop checker and tune your bubbles per second to get a stable green colour all the time the lights are on.

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Indeed this is one of the things I don't really understand about peoples beef with Co2 the point is that its forcing your plants to respire to the point of pearling which is when the water cant absorb any more oxygen. I'm sure theres more to the science than that but sometimes Co2 injection is just presented as pumping in a gas for no reason.

Today saw an impromptu stop off at an LFS thats quite good for plants locally and I stocked up. It wasnt exactly what I wanted but I got some from my ideas list.



I've added Dwarf Sagittaria to the front/middle left, added more Limonophilla to the back left and now back right corners. I got some Crypt Wendetii. There are 2 pots of hair grass in the carpet (though I fear the carpet is too algae riddled to save) and I got a pot of Juncus Repens which I really like and have put it between the Limnophilla and Dwarf Sag.

What I really wanted to get was some pearl weed for where the dwarf sag and juncus is now, more rotala H'ra for on the left and then try and reinvigorate the carpet perhaps with monto carlo this time. But getting the pearl weed is proving hard (same for the H'ra too tbh).

I got the Co2 set up last weekend but over the night the air tube started to backfill so the gas didnt get through and it was kind of presurised in the tube so I couldnt get it to work? So I have put 2 non return valves on it - one near the canister to make it easy for changing the canisters and an other right next to the diffuser so hopefully it wont back syphon. If I still have this problem I'll order a different diffuser like the Tropica or Twin Star one.

Ultimately this tank needs to move towards the end of November so if this Co2 set up does not work I'll strip the scape down and make it more basic maybe with some epiphyte plants and more wood.

Wills

Non return valves are pretty much essential for co2 set ups. When the co2 stops due to timer and then the air pipe more often than not starts to fill with water from the tank and almost like a syphon hose the water may go all the way to your co2 regulator and thus may damage the reg, so do get good return valves.

I like pearl weed (Hemianthus micranthemoides) a sort of carpeting plant and adds a nice depth to foreground areas as well.

Tank is coming along, a few more tweaks with the co2 and an extra dose of patience, hopefully plants will start to grow lush once you find the right balance.

Still reading through from the start but it's looking good.

Regarding flow. I had the best results using a spray bar down the back and bottom of the tank. Either direct output from the filter or even with a small submersible pump. This gives a lot of water movement and helps stop dead spots without giving a lot of surface movement.

Regarding CO2 diffusion. I tried a bunch of different reactors and defusers. The best results I had was to just feed it directly into the output of my filter with a bit of tubing cut up and placed inside the output tube to create turbulence. It completely dissolved the CO2 and because it was then being put out through a spray bar at the bottom of my tank it spead out equally across the whole tank. Cost me absolutely nothing and was better then all the reactors and diffuser I had used. I'm just waiting for a new light to turn up for my current tank and will be setting it up again so can take some more detailed pictures to explain t if you want.

xxBarneyxx said:

Still reading through from the start but it's looking good.

Regarding flow. I had the best results using a spray bar down the back and bottom of the tank. Either direct output from the filter or even with a small submersible pump. This gives a lot of water movement and helps stop dead spots without giving a lot of surface movement.

Regarding CO2 diffusion. I tried a bunch of different reactors and defusers. The best results I had was to just feed it directly into the output of my filter with a bit of tubing cut up and placed inside the output tube to create turbulence. It completely dissolved the CO2 and because it was then being put out through a spray bar at the bottom of my tank it spead out equally across the whole tank. Cost me absolutely nothing and was better then all the reactors and diffuser I had used. I'm just waiting for a new light to turn up for my current tank and will be setting it up again so can take some more detailed pictures to explain t if you want.

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Very good tips imho.

Particularly like using the leftover tube and adding directly to filter output (you can buy co2 inline atomiser) and going through the spraybar at bottom of tank, make a lot of sense.

Pretty simple and easy solution that should work for any co2 tank set up really and why I did not think of this, how did I miss that?

Saves a small fortune in trying different atomisers and diffusers I reckon.

Ch4rlie said:

Pretty simple and easy solution that should work for any co2 tank set up really and why I did not think of this, how did I miss that?

Saves a small fortune in trying different atomisers and diffusers I reckon.

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I think it's one of them things. People see all the top guys using these fancy looking diffusers and think that has to be the best way.

I tried maybe half a dozen diffuser designs a bunch of co2 "ladder" difusers and both bought and homemade reactors. The reactors mostly did the job but then I did some testing just using the filter output piping and got the same results with a ton less cost and lots more reliability.

In my experience even the super expensive diffusers don't give 100% CO2 absorption and they only really put it into one spot on the tank. I've tested it once in a tank that had fairly bad Staghorn algae. On the CO2 end it was fine but was alage on the other. Switched the CO2 and filter output around and after a few weeks the alage switched sides.

Lack of good flow and CO2 dispersal was the issue. Most people have the same problem because they are using a lilly pipe to stop too much surface movement and a CO2 diffuser which is only working well in one part of the tank. That's just the "way it is done" but in my experience at least higher flow and ditching diffusers had better results.

Ch4rlie said:

going through the spraybar at bottom of tank, make a lot of

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Another way if doing it if you can't fit a spray bar at the bottom is to have it at the top pointing downwards and towards to the front of the tank. If you have very high flow from your filter and this is an issue pointing it down towards the back glass of the tank helps absorb the energy from the water flow but creates some nice random water movement through the tank which stops dead spots.

xxBarneyxx said:

Another way if doing it if you can't fit a spray bar at the bottom is to have it at the top pointing downwards and towards to the front of the tank. If you have very high flow from your filter and this is an issue pointing it down towards the back glass of the tank helps absorb the energy from the water flow but creates some nice random water movement through the tank which stops dead spots.

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The issue I had with my setup, had the spray bar at top of the tank just below water surface and tried different configurations, point downwards towards plants, tried pointing towards back rear glass downward etc and all seems to have same sort of results.

But I DO like the idea of spray bar at bottom of tank with co2 fed directly into filter output, not saying it will work in every tank set up but I cannot see why not if filter output is good enough with perhaps help of a small powerhead to help flow around tank.