# CO2 Journal



## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

I recently set up Co2 on my fluval flex 15 gallon. I'm a beginner when it comes to CO2, this being my first tank that injects it. I figured some one would like to follow along with me as I experiment with it and the plants I can now add because of the CO2. I'll hopefully give you guys some insight so you will be more prepared when taking the plunge into CO2

*The Tank*
It's a fluval flex 15 gallons, running all original equipment. I have plans to upgrade the tank a bit in the future but for now, everything is pretty standard for a flex. I got a 50 watt heater on it to keep it nice and toasty. The substrate is fluval shrimp stratum mixed with a bit of nat geo black sand. I got some rocks and of course the plants. 

You might be wondering why I chose to do this tank verse my 20 long planted. 2 reasons... First reason is Flow: A 20 long could be a great tank to inject CO2 but you run into a flow problem. CO2 needs to flow through the whole tank to be effective and with the boxy rectangle shape of the tank I would have to added another pump or a wave maker. Also adding flow would blow my betta Casper around and I don't want to do that to the poor fellow. The area where the output for the flex's pump is located and the front curve of the glass made the flex far more easier to circulate the CO2 around the tank. Second reason current plants: My 20 gallon is full of plants that do just fine without CO2, and why fix something not already broken? 

*The CO2*
I'm going to start injecting with a fairly tame amount of CO2, 1-2 bubbles a second. Bubbles per Second or BPS is what I'll be using. Eventually I'll be able to give you a better idea of how the carbon is being processed in the aquarium once I get a drop checker, but for now that is on back order so no idea when it'll be in. 

My CO2 system is a Green Leaf Aquarium(GLA) Pro. It was a pricey setup but after reading horror stories of regulator's failing and dumping a whole canister of CO2 into the tank, I knew I wanted the best quality equipment I could find. As a regulator is the very soul of any CO2 system, it should be well researched before it is purchased. I knew I wanted a Pro from GLA because the pro can handle tanks up to 400 gallons and has a 6 year warranty. It also features a built in bubble counter and can be easily expanded if I ever wanted to inject into my 20 gallon. 

*
The Fish*
The tank houses Grover my blue veil tail betta. He by far is one of my favorite fish, probably my favorite (if I'm allowed to have favorites). He got personality in excess and always seems to know when I'm looking at him; which is often because his tank is right next to my computer. As for the fish Grover rules over. That would be 5 oto catfish and a few ghost shrimp. The ghosties aren't doing so well in the tank, I think from a calcium problem as they can't seem to shed their shells right. I put in some crushed egg shell for them, hopefully I won't lose any more... 

*
The Plants.*
Amazon sword, peacock moss, flame moss, dwarf sagittaria, anacharis, Four leaf clover (marsilea hirsuta), moneywort, Anubias nana.

Most of these plants are fairly safe plants, and can easily grow without CO2 but since I'm new to CO2, I don't want to rush out and buy a bunch of plants. I'll remove plants and add plants and rescape the tank a few times probably before I call this journal to a close. CO2 isn't the instant magic many people seem to think it is, yes it does help plants grow but you also need to think about fertilizers, PAR, base water quality and light exposure time for each plant. My current ferts are Seachem Flourish, Aquarium Co-op Easy Green, Brightwell Aquatics FlorinGro they should be enough for these fairly basic plants but I will probably be dosing different ferts depending on future plants. 


So that's the set up.. I'll try and update once a week with pictures of how the tank looks and any thing new added. If you want to skip all that. I'll try and keep the 'my aquarium' up to date. Hopefully someone will find interest in this, if not it'll probably be lost to the wayside. 

Interesting fact I found out: Freshwater fish produce more waste then salt water fish.


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## ryry2012 (Mar 31, 2015)

Had to sub 


I'm so interested to see how CO2 makes differences. Please try some colorful plants someday!


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## ThatFishThough (Jan 15, 2016)

Was thinking about doing a CO2 on my 15G rimless. Will avidly await updates!


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## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

It's been about a week of growth, and well CO2 does definitely help. 

Anacharis is the big winner this week growing about 5 inches in a little under a week. I really don't mind it's rapid growth but it'll need to be trimming it back for sure by next week. The clipping will be replanted or given to the cichlids; as from everything I've read Cichlids love anacharis.

The moneywort and the mosses grew noticeably too. If anyone is wondering about the white mat along the back of my tank. The mat holds a nice size portion of moss behind it. I hope to grow it into a nice moss wall. I've heard of other doing it and I figured I'd give it a go. .

Everything else doesn't really look to different.

Sad news however, all of my shrimp seem to be dying. I've talked to a few shrimp people online and well all my test look good, it's probably the ph or calcium. Weather it's the ph swings from the CO2 or just the stratum lowering ph. It doesn't look good for them because they are dying well molting. I'm going to be transferring the survivors to the 20. Hopefully they have a better time there as I reexamine the tank to make it more shrimp friendly. I really wanted to do shrimp so I could get fire reds but I don't want to kill of animals and I can't in good conscious submit animal to die well I tweak things to make it alright for them. Any words of wisdom would be more then welcomed.

In other news.. I'm headed to my states aquarium club fish show this weekend. I'll mostly be looking at plants and talking to some aquascaping masters.


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## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

Site has been broken so I haven't been wanting to post until thumbnails work for me again... But alas I dunno when everything will be better again. I'll post pictures of this weeks growth once that is fixed until then you'll just have to believe this written reporting of it. Also I can't seem to update 'my aquarium' or else I'd direct you to pictures there. 

This weeks big growth winner seems to be the dwarf sagittaria. It's seems to be sending out a ton of runners and hopefully will be a nice starter carpet soon. It won't stay the tank's carpet but wanted to work with dwarf sagittaria so I got some. The pieces of dwarf sag I put in my 20 long planted hasn't even started to sprout runners so the CO2 is definitely affecting it's growth. 

As far as the other plants, everything has shown noticeable growth this week. Everything grew some more leaves, even the slow growing Anubias nana grew a new leaf and has another on the way. The flame moss and the moss wall are looking shaggier. The wall will probably take a few months to grow out though. It apparently takes a lot of aquascaping to keep it looking nice. 

In news about the tank.. Snails appeared.. I've been removing them every time I see them because I want to keep the tank snail free, but I dunno how much of a losing battle that will be down the line. Also Grover found a way to jump to the filter side of the tank, he currently chilling in the back left empty chamber. He scared me half to death this morning when I turned on the lights to find no Grover to greet me. I thought he was dead... but nope, he just decided to jump.. I doubt he is pleased about his new situation but when I tried to get him out early he dove to the bottom chamber and it's not easy to grab him with the slots they have in that chamber and it's size. 

In better news, my plants started pearling after I turned off the co2. It's not the super spectacular pearling I've seen online but it's one or two plants producing a constant stream of bubbles. I got pictures of it that I'll hopefully be able to show off when I can attach thumbnails again.


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## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

Alright, site is still broken on firefox, but I do have chrome and everything appears great so lets give this a try. 

This week everything did grow but nothing really seems to grow more anything else. If I had to give it to some plant though, I'd have to say the anubias. The Anubias has sent out a lot of roots these last few days and seems to want to lift itself and the cholla wood it's planted in to a different height in the tank. So far it's lifted itself about half an inch from the rock it was sitting on. Everything else is growing as well. I added picture this week so you can see the growth for yourselves. 

Other news, still dealing with the snail problem. I only find about 1 a day, but it's still a problem. Soon the tank's carpet might make it impossible for me to tide the war against them. Oh well, I'll live with the snails if push comes to shove. I also found green spot algae in the tank, it normally caused by a lack of phosphorus in the tank so I've been dosing that and also cause me to finally install the timers on both the CO2 and the light. Tank now only gets a 8 hour photo-period of light per day as opposed to the 12ish it was getting before. Since I've made those few changes it's pretty much seemed to halt the growth of the spot algae but only time will tell if I just lost a battle or if I have a war on my hands....


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## ryry2012 (Mar 31, 2015)

Try to give your tank surprise visit at night. I have ramshorn snails in my tank. They are the best algae cleaners. I started with 2 of them but I started seeing too many babies. It seems they are more active when it's dark. When I gave them surprise visit two nights ago, I could catch 12 babies within a couple of minutes. They are on leaves and glass where I could easily spot them.


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## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

Thanks for the tip. I'll try that tomorrow morning.


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## ryry2012 (Mar 31, 2015)

Turn on the light all of the sudden. The LED was off for 4 hours before I turned it on at 11 pm. 


By the way, I'm kinds of happy to see you have algae. I can feel like I'm not alone ;-)


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## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

Ugh everything needs a haircut. I'll hopefully get around to that soon but my schedule for the next 3 weeks is so chaotic I think I might just wait and let a jungle take over. I also don't think I'll be able to post another journal until everything is settled. I'm sure you are at least slightly curious about what I'm up to, so here is the basics, This weekend (including Friday in all these weekends), next weekend and the weekend after that I got stuff to do one state over. One involves a funeral, one involves a scheduled vacation to a state park, one involves seeing relatives. So yeah, busy.

Their is no big winner this week as far as growth. You might say the anacharis but it always grows like that... That stuff is a weed. Everything else has seem to slow down a notch. It all needs to be trimmed and managed though as the anacharis is blocking most of the light and might be causing the slow down. Once I get around to trimming the tank I'll do another journal and will no doubt be looking for new homes for excess plants soon. 

In bad news, the spot algae is taking over the anubias and it's old growth is covered with the stuff. I scrapped most of the aglae off the side of the tank and it seems to not be 'taking over' It's there but it more of a minor annoyance then a threat to everything but anubias. Also now I got more snail babies, after going a whole week without seeing any snails. I think I should just let them have the victory as I already feed Algae waffers to my otos so I don't have to worry about competing creatures. It's either that or get a copper based snail pesticide. I find myself doing a lot of reading on the internet when it comes to the aquarium hobby and an article I read the other day about how to create a better ecosystem within tanks. Their are tanks out there in the world that are perfectly healthy and don't need water changes.. Ever. Snails are always part of that ecosystem along with things like daphina and other little pond critters. Deep bed filters are fascinating... 

Anyways I'm sure you want some good news? Well once I get back from my busy schedule and back on tract with the tank, I have plans to add more plants and remove some old ones. Plants that aren't so basic and need CO2. I'm willing to take suggestions if anyone has any, but it has to be a medium or a medium-high light plant that needs co2, the flex light is great, but it is not putting out the pars needed for a exclusively high light plant.

Also sorry the water in my tank is so turbid, I added some well water to it and that stuff was coming out the tap green. It's basically filtered bog water.


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## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

I'm ending his journal here, The tank crashed and all of the fish inside disappeared. Yes Disappeared. I've torn the tank apart looking for bodies of dead fish... Nothing. I don't know what to do. I disconnected the Co2 and the tank sits still cycled. No ammonia, no nirites, nirates at less then 10... No fish only a few snails. Ph high at 8.2 and gh is low at 25 but Kh is high at 300. I dunno what to do...


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## ryry2012 (Mar 31, 2015)

What?! Do you mean the tank cycle crashed? How could all the fish disappear??!! 


KH 300 means pH can get higher easily...


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## Kadington (Apr 14, 2016)

Before I left for my trips Ph was 7.4, Kh and Gh were both around 150ish... Just checked ammonia again.. .25 my test strips were bad apparently. Something died in the tank and the ph spiked. Did a massive water change around 75 percent.. Looked for bodies again. Nothing but all the plants are covered in a slime like something decayed and is now everywhere. Hopefully got most of it when I vacuumed but I ended up tearing up a lot of the plants. Added some bacteria starter and will treat the tank like an uncycled tank giving it daily water changes and prime. I will probably be getting another betta as to keep the cycling going once I get it under control... I feel bad because everything was going great before my trip.. Something must of died and started a chain reaction of events that lead to the tanks downfall. Plants still look good, so if I can get it under control I'll start over.


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## ryry2012 (Mar 31, 2015)

I hope everything will be under control soon. I forgot to say earlier; I'm so sorry for your losses, especially your beloved Grover :-(


My 8.6 gallon had a consistent cyanobacteria problem, so I decided to try a product called Green Slime Remover. I dose it and turned on an aeration because it was recommended. It really worked. It wiped out all cyano in my tank. I also found out the aeration was very good for the plants. They are growing much better now.


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