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RE: New and and need help with PH/GH/CO2
Sue-
For CO2 info, especially reactors etc, I would highly
recommend the Krib's CO2 page at:
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/
Also, if you want to buy a pre-made reactor that will
improve your DIY Yeast performance, I would point you
toward either the "Plant Guild" or Barr CO2 reactors
sold by Robert H's AquaBotanic:
http://www.aquabotanic.com/CO2page.html
The Krib has a lot of pH / Hardness info on the page
I listed as well.
My advice would be to save your $$ and buy a
pressurized CO2 system as soon as you can -- with the
pH / Hardness of your water, Yeast CO2 probably wont
do much good. But, with pressurized CO2, you could
bring your pH down to 7.0 and have a near-ideal 30
mg/L CO2.
Saggitaria and Vals will probably grow with the pH /
KH of your water, but many plants might have a tough
time. GH doesn't really seem to matter for most
plants IME. The GH of my tap went from 6 in the
summer, to 10 now -- I think the water company
switched sources -- and all my plants are doing
fine. My KH stayed the same at a value of 5.
If you want to lower your KH/GH, you could do a few
things:
(1) Invest in an RO Unit
(2) Try Aq Pharm's "Tap Water Purifier" (A DI system)
(3) Dilute the tank water with distilled / RO water
from the store (only an option if you have $$ and/or a little - <10g - tank)
If you want more help, I would ask that you post all
the tank specs to give us a better understanding of
what you are dealing with. (Tank size, lighting,
substrate, Macro nutrient levels, fertilization etc)
Hope this helps,
-Tony
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To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: New and and need help with PH/GH/CO2
From: WildPraire at aol_com
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 12:16:49 EST
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Hello all,
I'm new and am looking for advice on several basics
that I don't yet understand. I've had tanks for years, always had
some live plants but now want to concentrate on the plants as I find
them so beautiful.
I have a 55 gal tank planted fairly heavily, although the crypts are taking over and I haven't had much luck with the faster growing
plants. I have community fish, mostly cardinals, tetras and some
algae eating creatures. I went through a tremendous amount of hair
algae (for about 7 months, lost most all of my faster growing plants
and lowered the light to help control algae). Then I fought with
cyanobacteria for several months. I am now algae free will be
increasing the light again. I'm going to be removing a lot of the
crypts to make room for other plants, the idea being to get more
faster growing ones which may help me prevent algae taking over the
tank. What is a good source of plant material?
I set up a DIY yeast mixture for CO2 5 days ago. Although its
bubbling its clear to me that I need a reactor, membrane, diffuser
or something along that line as I can see I'm losing most all of my
CO2 that's bubbling up out of the tank. I'm lost when it comes to
which device to use to diffuse the CO2 into the tank more
efficiently. I'd like something that I can use with my DIY yeast
system, but that would also work if I upgrade to a real CO2 system.
Ideas?
My water chemistry is a major problem from what I've been reading.
My pH is 8.5, GH is 9 and KH is 10 (if my test kit is correct). My
understanding is that these values are too high and I'm not sure
what to do to correct it. If I'm understanding the info I've read
this values make little CO2 available to the plants. This is well
water I'm using. I'm not really into using chemicals to change the
water values, is it my only hope?
As you can tell I'm not a scientist, and I know all these questions
are probably old hat to most of you. I would really appreciate some
wisdom from those who can push me in the right direction.
Thank you,
Sue Wild
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