Planted FW tanks, substrate, pH and CO2 questions ..

Here is a link that explains the co2 to air loss. He is known as plantbrain here.

Here is his latest journal. Click on page #4 to see his sump.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I've swapped over the driftwood to new pieces because I just couldn't scrape the old ones clean so for now the old ones are out on the deck getting the algae freeze-dried into oblivion (hopefully anyhow, I don't want to toss them, they're otherwise fairly nice pieces)..



Oh .. fertilizer. Right .. Umm .. unfortunately I've fallen behind on that. I used to get all my FW stuff from one shop in town which closed down and I need to do a better job of looking for FW planted supplies when I go LFS hopping.

Do you use a liquid fertilizer or the tabs that you shove into the substrate? Any suggestions for a kind to look for next time I make the LFS rounds?

ok couple things I see, are you using real drift wood from the ocean or are you using the mopani wood? If it is drift wood, thats probably leaching into your tank and raising your hardness.

I could never grow algae in my planted tank, do you have a nice mix of fast and slow growing plants? I did both fertalizers, jobe sticks in the substrate and home made pmdd. there are plenty of sights for home made reactor style co2 difusers that use bioballs, I am just using a media reactor (red one from my excess salt water stuff, can't remember who makes it) and a bunch of bio balls. I have it set up to hang on the outside of the tank. I used a fuval canister filter for my fresh water tank, so the ouput of that is going to feed the reactor then I use a subsurface spray bar to put the water back to the tank. the top of my water is dead calm but there is quite a bit of flow under the surface.

Steve

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I should ask this on a FW forum but what the heck let's put some activity in this one ..

I have a planted FW tank, must be coming up on 5 years old, and there's something I've never really been able to understand with this stuff.

I inject CO2 to try to have better plants than algae. For the most part it does not work out. For one, I can't seem to lower the pH of the tank .. at all .. with CO2. In fact, the pH is much higher in the tank than the tapwater is coming out of the tap.

Tap water is around 7.5, the tank runs around 8.5. This is with about 2 bubbles per second CO2 into a cyclone style CO2 reactor inside the tank.

Could the substrate be the cause? I have a mixture of black flourite and a laterite based substrate. Looked like crushed lava rocks though, if that helps.

A couple pieces of mopani driftwood are also in the tank.. could that be helping push the pH up?

I have a couple TLF phosban reactors kicking around somewhere, would it be a good idea to add peat pellets to help bring the pH down? If I do that, how do I know how much CO2 to add to the tank if I aim for a pH target based on the carbonate hardness of the water? (Or would peat bring the KH value down?)

I'll be doing some reading tonight in an effort to wrap my brain around these questions but I'd totally welcome any insights from planted tank gurus .. please and thank you!

I have the same substrate black crashed Haitian moon. PH is always high.
But plants are happy with Co2 injection. what i do is i inject Co2 in to outside canister filter intake. It all get 100% dissolved by the time water comes out of the filter, nothing fancy but works well.
recently changed to low wattage LED and plants love it !
TDS is about 400 ppm
And for algae control shrimps are always the best. I have painted fire shrimps multiplying and some times being eaten but micro algae is under control.

[Delphinus]

Hi Steve, it's actual Mopani ... er, I think. Come to think of it it might have been labelled Malaysian driftwood. I'm not sure if that's the same thing or not. At any rate it's purchased and not collected. Many years ago I did try using pieces of wood I collected out of streams in the mountains but the stuff would get moldy so that experiment didn't last too long.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Do you use a liquid fertilizer or the tabs that you shove into the substrate? Any suggestions for a kind to look for next time I make the LFS rounds?

Here is what i use but not regularly

Tony, you can buy from green leaf aquariums. It's much cheaper than any hydroponics store in Calgary.

The only Seachem that I buy is the iron. We have hard water so the iron chelate that you can buy in the fertilizer does not last as long.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Hi Steve, it's actual Mopani ... er, I think. Come to think of it it might have been labelled Malaysian driftwood. I'm not sure if that's the same thing or not. At any rate it's purchased and not collected. Many years ago I did try using pieces of wood I collected out of streams in the mountains but the stuff would get moldy so that experiment didn't last too long.

are you running carbon? Mopani should stain the water and drop the PH, your introducing hardness somewhere....


Steve

[Delphinus]

Yeah that is the weirdest thing, the water does not stain with tannins, but there is no carbon. When I presoaked the wood for a couple days it made that standing water super brown, maybe it leeched enough that it doesn't stain anymore, but that just seems odd to me nevertheless.

I have probably about 3 gallons of plastic bioballs in the sump and over top of that is some filter floss. Other than than the Tunze that is really it to this tank. I do use a cable heater in the substrate but I don't imagine that has anything to do with the lack of tannins in the water.