Re: Learning From Others Errors

["Steven Pituch" <spituch at ev1_net>]

Jennifer,

Don't feel bad about your unfortunate incident.  It happens to everyone at
one time or another.  What you did was probably hard to avoid.  I've killed
lots of fish from my own dumb errors, which in my case could have been
avoided if I had just done more thinking and didn't rush something.

I've always thought that it was hard to really overdose on Co2.  The only
instance that I remember this happening before on the list was when someone
had a very tight lid on their tank.  The Co2 basically collected at the
surface of the water pushing out all the oxygen that was in contact with the
water surface out of the air plenum under the tank lid.  This will cause
suffocation since oxygen can no longer be absorbed into the water from the
air.  Do you have a tight lid on the tank?  This is one advantage of having
an open top aquarium.

If this really happened because Chuck Gadd's reactor design is that much
more efficient,  I've got to consider making one.  I am currently using an
Eheim diffuser and I figure it was about as efficient as your previous
diffuser.  I am only getting a far amount of Co2 into the water and am
probably using 4 bubbles per second versus the one-third bubble per second
you were using.

Regards,

Steve Pituch