C02 in river tanks?

[Rocco]

I'm reading this planted tank encyclopedia and it doesn't recommend putting CO2 in your planted tank but I was wondering.

Do any of you have co2 in your planted tanks?

I'm asking in the loach forum because I am setting up a planted tank that will have loaches.

(I finally got that 80 gallon tank I was telling you about and I want to plant it)

I also put in a styro rock background. Doing the work slowly so it looks fantastic.

[wasserscheu]

My personal idea is, to use as little technical-stuff and ingridients as absolutely posible. Look at mistergreen´s nice recent thread of a low tech planted tank.

Many friends need CO2, some do fine without, but those have rather too many fish in their tanks.

Carbon is one of the most important nutritions for plant grow. I unfourtenately need to add it, otherwise I get calcium on my leaves. Try fisrt without, if the growth is not to your target, and all other parameters (light, Nxx, K, PO4, Fe and other traceelements) are satisfied, than add CO2. I keep CO2 at 20mg/l.

There are a bunch of good CO2 threads allready here, perhaps search for "Crazy Loaches" input (I guess he had a lot experience documented. Also has loaches), mine as well... etc. For any detailes please return with questions...

With rather high surface movement in a "hilly" and/or aeretation, the CO2 may get blown out of the water very quick. Some even feed so much that there is still enough Co2 present and just blow it in like an airstone... Too much CO2 may sufficate a fish...and its costly too...

What may be a possible reason to avoid CO2 in a planted tank? I am surprised.

[shari2]

I'm in Wolfram's camp. No CO2 here, either. The plants are growing well in my river tank.

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=10178&start=0

[Rocco]

I think I'll up my lighting instead of putting CO2 in. I currently only use a single fluorescent light with no reflector.

[newshound]

what type of river tank?
The real deal (martin's design) or a lesser version?
IN my tanks I use the under substrate plumbing design but with less flow than a hillstream setup. Co2 is okay in that. But a high o2 set up like hillstream loaches need I'd think with all the surface agitation that you'd be fighting a losing battle trying to increase your Co2 levels.
That all written I once heard that Co2 is heavier than o2 so it settles at the top of a tank and doesn't allow the water surface o2.

[Rocco]

Martin's design, but with 1" tubing instead of 3/4

[wasserscheu]

Whatever dimensions your tank has, 1 lamp may be not enough, however I don´t know your natural light. How about designing a quick-job Aluminium-foil-reflector? may do well as a quick fix. A reflector brings a bunch of light into the water, which otherwise is lost. PIck plants that are not so demanding (echinodorus, cryptocorynes). Make sure there is enough Fe 0,1mg/liter (I add a special fertilizer for roses, but its testet though-obviousely just any fert. may be deadly), in case of lacking Fe, plants get yellow/light leaves (specially the new leaves), if the leaves are nicely dark, no additional Fe ma ybe needed. Check for sufficient N and Po4 (most likely there will be plenty of it, if there are well feed fish in there) - If you are not worried about clogging up your sand, adding clay balls may be quite efficient for "root-feeding" plants (echi., crypto.), into those balls you could add certain fertilizers, but make sure there is only N-P-K in there (in case using just flower fert. - if you realy go that way, lets go much more into detail in case of interest, to avoid accidents). Some of the Echis grow some leave or stems above water, so the plant can use the CO2 of the air above the water)....

[Cup]

What plants are you looking at keeping? Very few high flow suitable plants necessitate CO2.

[Rubix]

i agree with several above in using as little as possible. i have my loaches in an all-natural tank (sand, rocks, wood, plants) but no co2, just ferts whenever i do a water change. its a low tech tank, no co2 required, and all of my tanks are low tech - its less to worry about and one less thing for my roommates/the dog to screw up. however, i do intend to run co2 in one or two of my other tanks, but that wont be anytime soon. i would imagine that the co2 will dissipate quicker in a rivertank, especially if you are pumping air into it whether its with an air pump or a powerhead air hose. in that case i would suggest pumping in co2 by day and air by night. heck, i already turn air on at night. but the problem there is that the loaches should be provided with more than enough air.
i love loaches and i love 'aquatic jungles' and aquascaping, im going to do both in the future

[Rocco]

No problems with the ferts. I plan to keep mostly Anubias shaded by some bogwood arrangements, and some other plants that I will list when I have my book with me.

[Diana]

I do not think you will get much results with adding CO2 to a tank with such high water movement. The CO2 will just out-gas before it really benefits the plants.

Whatever CO2 the plants remove might very well be made up by the water picking up more CO2 at the air/water surface.
You might try Excel as a source of carbon.

Plants with tough leaves that will stand up tot he high water flow might really be the slower growing plants as you suggest: Anubias for example. While these plants will grow a little faster in a high tech tank (high light, CO2, lots of fertilizers) they will look just a rich and handsome in a river tank, as you say, protected from the strongest water flow by carefully arranged driftwood and rocks. You really don't want them growing too fast, or they will overgrow their little safe hide-away and need to be trimmed anyway.

[Mark in Vancouver]

I'm with Diana. Any added CO2 will dissipate quickly if you've got the right oxygenation that river tanks are designed for. No point.

[Rocco]

Right. I value everyone's opinion highly and I want to say thank you. I don't think I'll go with putting CO2 in that 80 gallon tank. Instead, I will make a better light system with reflectors and all that.

I was wondering why I didn't get much algae growth, always thought it was the lack of co2 but I guess it was really the lack of better lighting.

[mistergreen]

think of light intensity like metabolism.. The more light intensity, the higher the metabolism in plants and the more nutrients and CO2 the plants will take up. If plants deplete all the nutrients & CO2, they're start to leak more nutrients than usual. And they'll start to go into some sort of necrosis. The algae in turn start to take over the available nutrients the plants can't use.

So, keep the lights relatively low (up to 2 watts per gallon) to keep the plants uptake of nutrients low. The plants do fine in this.

[crazy loaches]

Yup^ light / co2 / ferts / growth are all proprtional, meaning they all go up together or all down together. If you increase lights without increasing co2 or ferts, then thats when algae usually takes hold. You probably can increase the lights a little, like MrG said try to stick to a maximum of ~2wpg unless you want to use co2.

Lower light & lower growth plants have less demand on the rest (proportional remember) so low co2 and low ferts as well. If you limit yourself to those types youll do ok without co2.

If this is a regular loach tank then it can be done (higher light, co2, etc.) and I've done it somewhat successfully so far. On a true river tank, with a few thousand gph, all sorts of surface agitation, like others have said the co2 will probably outgas and will be very hard to get high levels.

BTW I plan on running co2 on my 240g project, and it does have lots of surface agitation with the overflows, so time will tell if I can maintain co2 levels (havent run co2 on it yet).