Plant care/maintenance

Just a question to whoever has experience.

Would u bubble a little CO2 through your water for your aquatic plants?

 

yes....

 

yeast, sugar and water mixed in a bottle?

any other cheap easy alternatives?

 

Tunzee CO2 regulators - R1800. 8kg bottle - screw top - R800.....

 

Hi, you could even use a Soda Stream bottle with a regulator from a hardware shop if you wish for a cheap alternative to the Tunze's! But the other than that it's the water, sugar and yeast.

 

Soda stream sounds buch better than forking out over 2 G's.
Thanks, can't believe I didn't think of it

 

Please let us know if you get it to work. I've heard of it but could never find any off the shelf regulators to work on those bottle.

 

I'll see what I can do.

In the famous words of Jerremy Clarkson, "How hard could it be?"

 

and then the rest of us shudder

 

LOL

If something goes bad and I happen to blow up my appartment, I'll post pics

 

Pots

Should you remove plants from the pots, or can you keep them there for the long term?

 

I've got a DIY Co2 generator and diffuser. The generator is straight forward to make as per plenty of articles on google.

With the diffuser, I use to place the airline tube from the CO2 generator (yeast, water and suger) into the tank with an airstone. It seemed to work fine as you could see the bubbles getting smaller as it floated on the surface. However, it also appeared to be inefficient since many of the bubbles popped before dissolving into the water. Then using an idea I saw on you tube, I created a diffuser using half a 500ml water bottle, an old small water pump, and an elastic band.

All I did was drill a small hole into the bottom of the bottle (open/cut-up side down) and pushed the airline through so that the Co2 would feed into the bottle and get trapped at the top. Then on the otherside of the bottle, I made another hole large enough for the water pump's "nose" to fit in. Then I used an elastic band to hold the bottle and pump together. You then submerge the entire "thing" into the tank completely submerged. You have to make sure that there is no air in the bottle before submerging it.

Basically what happens is that the Co2 enters the bottle and gets trapped inside. Then the water pump creates turbulance within the bottle which helps dissolve the Co2 faster. The water pump also helps push the water around so that the Co2 enriched water is distributed around the tank. Using this diffuser, there is no Co2 lost, and all of it is dissolved into the water.

Here's a rudementary picture of what I'm talking about:


Has anyone measured the Co2 content of the water from using such a diffuser?

 

If you don't want to go the CO2 route, get good quality ferts instead. I've never used CO2 and never had the need to. I can recommend you use one of 2 products:

1. Bellstedt Biologicals Plant Food (P.M me or Henk if you are interested, this is actually the only ferts I now use due to amazing results)
2. Flourish Excel (Available in any decent petshop)

I have Rotala Wallichii that is growing in my tank just fine without the need for CO2; I have proper light distribution in my tank + the ferts in point 1 above and all my plants are doing just gr8.

PS - Just make sure you have good lights in your tank as well

Just my 2c

Cheers
Dale

Cheers
Dale

 

Hey CO2 fundis... would pouring soda water into your tank push up the CO2 levels?

 

thats how they used to do it in the old days....

 

Sorry - only saw this now ush:

Yes you have to remove plants from the rockwool and plastic pots. I plant my plants in terracotta clay pots with normal topsoil and then i cap it off with pool filter sand and stones to revent my cichlids from digging them up.

Anubias and Javafern tie onto driftwood

HTH

 

Thanks! Done and looking better! My swords took a bit of damage, but they seem to be recovering nicely...

I made CO2 reactors from pickle jars, drilled 5mm hole in lid, put a plastic pipe through, 50cm, attached an air stone and stuck them into 4 of my tanks. The mixture - 100ml brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon brewers yeast, 1 cup warm water. They have been going for 2 weeks now, a nice steady flow of CO2. My pH has gone down to 6.5 (from 7.5)in all the tanks with the reactors. 3 days into the addition, plants that were struggling, started making a comeback, the others became richer green and generally look healthier...My Bolivian Rams which I have had for quite sometime even laid eggs! (But a pleco got them:evil. I have moved them to a new tank (ex jewels) and eagerly await the next batch...

 

sounds good man

 

If anything goes wrong with that idea, you'd land up with sparkling aquarium water... and dead fish