[APD] Re: Making little ones out of big ones: bubble rates

["jebrady7 at juno_com" <jebrady7 at juno_com>]

Thanks for the response, Steve.  I?m putting 45bpm into the 65 right now, filtration is a canister with just a little surface upwelling from the current, no real significant surface disturbance.  Using glass covers, have 2x96W PCs and a 30W NO over the tank.  I know I?m getting some reasonable concentration of CO2, as the tank pearls like champagne.  There is some BBA on the Anubias, and I want to be sure to maintain control over that.  There?s fuzz on the other plants, not a lot, but too much in my book.  That wasn?t present before I went to the larger tank.  There wasn?t a new tank syndrome to go through.  Essentially I was just transferring plants, filtration, injection, etc. from the tank this replaced.

The pH acid buffering is nettlesome.  With that level of injection, I only get about .2 drop in pH.  Something ain?t kosher.  Recalibrated my probe and it?s right on the money.  I have a ton of cork bark and some driftwood in this tank, but there is little or no visible darkening from the release of tannins.  There?s a little Leonardite on the bottom glass, under 1-6? of substrate.  The thin substrate is Moon sand and the other is Eco-complete over Volcanit.  This tank has lots of hardscape, and I wouldn?t have been too surprised about alkaline buffering from some of the rock (didn?t acid-test all of it), but acid buffering was a curve ball.

With only 18 months into this game and half with a pressure system, I don?t have enough experience to rely on eyeballing the plants to tell when CO2 is and is not OK.  I could tell when other nutrients were bottoming out in the 30 this replaced, but didn?t worry about CO2.  The pH controller was responsible for that.  Realizing the need to keep everything else up to snuff, I?m doing more testing than I?ve done since I started.  I?m going to learn something from this experience only if I can make sure CO2 is the only thing that varies.  It?s a lot more work right now and will be until I know what this tank needs.

So far, nobody?s gasping at the surface.  

James

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