INCREASING OXYGEN IN TANK WATER

[annieb]

It’s been proven that living things benefit from the amount of oxygen that’s available to them in their environment. Plants add oxygen and consume carbon dioxide to our tank water when they are in properly lighted conditions. When they are without light, they consume oxygen and return carbon dioxide.
That being said, if I were to set up two 55 gallon tanks, one on top of the other under the following conditions, would I greatly increase the amount of oxygen in the water?
The top tank will be bare bottom with an “overflow” hookup and 8 three inch Discus. The bottom tank will be heavy planted with the plants that grow the fasted and give off the most oxygen. The bottom tank will have 24 hour overhead light, under gravel filtration, and one or two Albino Bristlenoses to control Algae.. It will also have a 600 GPH submergible pump that exchanges the water between the two tanks..
Is this worth experimenting with?

[Squiggy]

I'd think you'ld get better results (re: oxygen) with a wet/dry in place of the bottom tank.

Joe

[FishLover888]

The concept is not new. The plants will actually take out some of the nitrates and other nasty things in the tank. It will actually complete the nitregon cycle for you if you have enough plants.

I was reading a book Nature Fish Tank(or somethign like that). They have the same concept. Two tanks connected and one has plants with 24 hrs lighting. Their planted tank is much bigger and they never had to do any water changes (other than top off) for years without any problem.

[gg5190]

The bottom tank will have 24 hour overhead light, under gravel filtration, and one or two Albino Bristlenoses to control Algae..

This is your problem right here... The thing with plants is that they photosynthesize in the day and respire during the night... I would think that leaving the lights on for 24hrs would be damaging to the plants? When would they breakdown glucose for ATP? Other than that most plants don't like large water flow past there roots, this could also harm the plants if the flow was too high...

What if you turned the bottom 55 in to a refugium/sump. Divide it in half, one side a wet/dry system, with bio balls, and plenty of surface area, then the water would flow to the other where you could keep plants and such. You could also run an wooden air stone or a powerhead to airate the water. Just my 2 Cents.

[Polar_Bear]

I agree that 24 hours a day light will kill your plants. I have a system similar to this, although larger, where both tanks are planted and the lights are on in one tank while the other tank is off. it works well. If all you want is more O2 in the water column, simply provide a lot of surface movement in your tank which will add more O2 than plants can. If you want to remove NO3 via plants and forego water changes for discus, you can pretty much forget that idea. NO3 is not the only problem, or even the worst problem. Far more of a problem is DOC (Dissolved Organic Compounds) which the plants will do little to reduce. For discus there just is no substitute for water changes unless you want to spend VERY big bucks.

[dandestroy]

Plant need their dark cycle, if not they die.

putting plant into a refugium just to increase the oxygen content is not require you just need to create surface movement to achieve this.

[Ed13]

I don't think having the light 24hr on will kill the plants, but the growth of algae will!;)

The warmer the water the less Oxygen it can hold, maybe keeping the water under 84F is all you need!

[jpfelix]

increase your agitation and you can light the bottom tank on a reverse photoperiod. instead of 24hr.