CO2

[AppleFritter]

Hi, I have a heavily planted 72 gallon aquarium that i just recently introduced compressed CO2 to. I have 6 discus, 2 cobalts, 2 pigeon bloods and 2 wild heckels. All are juvy's except one wild. However since introducing the CO2 with a glass diffuser i had a dramatic spike in ph, well can't say it spiked but it fell to ~6.5 from 7.0 The heckels took it the worst and ending up dying on me a few days later even after stabalizing the issue at hand. I have since slowed down the CO2 and now the other 4 are back to eating properly and swimming around. My question is are heckels or any other type of wild worth attempting again? I now understand how fragile they are but in a planted aquarium is it worth the effort/grief to try accommodate them? Also to what degree can I put in CO2 that isn't going to harm my discus? Originally i had it going at about 4 bubbles a second now its down to about 1 and a half which has slowed down my plant growth. I guess further testing of my water over a few days will help me optain a certain amount of equilibrium.

Thanks in advance.
David

[xanthid]

I dont have any discus yet but I had a similar experience when I switched from a sub-par reactor to a duffuser. I lost 6 cardinals, 4 sae, 5 bloodfin tetras over 2 days. I dialed back the co2 and added 2 powerheads. 1 is just above the diffuser and flowing down the back wall and the other is at the top pointed at the surface. When using a glass diffuser, water cicrulation is important. You wanna make sure that you have enough current to get the bubbles all over the tank and enough surface agitation for gas exchange. Then I slowly turned up the co2 while watching the fish for any strange behaviors. So far everything is doing good and the plants are pearling like crazy. I have very soft water out of the tap so I add a gh booster to help against ph swings. With the addition of co2, you may find that your limiting factor with plant growth will now be nutrients. I would also suggest you look into a c02 drop checker from ebay if you dont already have one. With all the variables in planted tanks, its nice to know exactly how much co2 is actually in your water.

[diablocanine]

Here is a good link:
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm
The bigger the fish, the quicker they are affected......DC

[AppleFritter]

Thanks for the information, and thanks for that link. I was looking for something like that which would clarify results....etc. Thank you very much it proved to be very helpful.

David

[Alight]

Going from 7 to 6.5 should not have been a problem. At least, the pH swing was not the culprit. What was your KH? It could be that you added way to much CO2 for the fish, too quickly. I've found that if you up the CO2 slowly, you can get to very high levels without major effects on Discus. However, if you add a Discus from a non CO2 tank to the tank with lots of CO2, you may kill that fish.

Certainly take a look a the charts (KH vs CO2) to get an idea of what your CO2 is.

As to Heckles vs others, I really can't advise raising any Juvies in a planted tank, CO2 or not. Just raise them in a bare bottom, and when they are adults, you can add them to your planted tank.

Lots of reasons for this.