CO2 distrubution?

[bjorn]

Hi,

I'm all new to planted tanks and slowly taking it all in. But I have a question about CO2 distrubtion of bubbles I've not been able to find any answer for on here. Sorry in advance for the rather long post!!

I have a ADA glass diffuser which sits at the bottom in the back corner of the tank (80L), the intake and outflow (ADA lily pipe) from my external filter sits on the opposite side of the tank but at the front corner. I messed around with placement but this seems to give me the best flow of bubbles, still not great but.. that's where my question comes in.

Currently the water flow goes from the filter outflow, hitting the opposite corner of the tank, then takes a turn to the back-corner were the diffuser is. The flow hits the bubbles which pushes them off the diffuser and along the back of the tank, it gently rises upwards from the bottom where the diffuser is, upwards to about half way the back of the tank before it hits the surface. Only a small amount of bubbles ever go 3/4 way around the tank.

But is it important that the bubbles go around the entire tank? Or is the aim just to try and keep the bubbles in the water as long as possible? I'm just not sure what the exact aim is, to have the small bubbles everywhere or for it to have time to dissolve into the water?

A few other facts:

- There seems to be a lot of small bubbles on the surface of the water. I raised the top part of lily pipe slightly above the water surface to give it some movement, which seems to have helped a bit. (found some posts about this online)

- I have a rather cheap CO2 measurement by JBL (waiting for a better one), it's telling me the CO2 value is OK (green) but I've read that I should have seen a big increase in growth with CO2 which I haven't really except the java moss. I started with CO2 Glass diffuser 1 week ago, before that had a ladder type by JBL for a week.

- The tank is quite new, 4-6 weeks.

- I might have overfed the fish slightly, trying to feed much less now but feel sorry for the fish..

- There was a problem with brownish algae to start with but I seem to have gotten rid of most of it by a few regular water changes.

- There are some Green algae appearing on the back glass but not very much.

- Some of the plants do have black or brown algae on their leaves, this could be from when I had the brown algae problem in the beginning.

I've attached a couple of images to illustrate. Remember I'm a beginner.. so not exactly a pretty tank!

 

[RudeDogg1]

It needs to go right around the tank so all the plants get some. You would probably be better off with the diffuser under the filter outlet. If you have only been running co2 for 2 weeks that's prob why you haven't noticed a dif yet. I could be wrong I'm a noob but that's what I've read and been told as I've been fighting with my co2 this week but I use an atomiser.

Rudi

 

[Dolly Sprint 16v]

Hi

To improve the distrubtions of Co2 within the water column you would be better off placing you diffuser directly underneath your glass outlet pipe or to get the most out of your gas place the diffuser underneath the water in take pipe, the tiny bubble will be drawn into the filter with the water and the media within the filter will break the tiny bubbles even more and become comletely dissolved - maximising your gas injection.

Regards
Paul.

 

[nry]

Putting the CO2 bubbles into the filter works for some but not others. My TetraTec EX600 just got full of CO2 and became very noisy, in the end I stuck a £5 eBay Boyu inline diffuser onto the tank inlet pipe from the filter and this works much better.

Nice layout by the way, like it

 

[bjorn]

Thanks for the advice. I did get a new CO2 checker. It's showing sort of lime-green / green. Also using a 2nd old checker to make sure the different areas of the tank have similiar levels. But so it seems that there is enough co2, maybe even too much.

I just wan't sure if the aim was to make sure all the bubbles go around the entire tank or that they just need to be in contact with the water for as long as possible.

 

[nry]

Getting sufficient flow is about ensuring that all areas of the aquarium get an equal flow of nutrients (CO2 included). This can often reduce or negate algae build up in the slower moving areas which often filter flow doesn't get to.

 

[bjorn]

The weird thing is that I get green algae building up mainly on the glass where the most amount of bubbles are, i.e. close to the diffuser.

I'm also starting to think that it's not really a problem with my diffuser or co2, but that my filter isn't strong enough. It's a external JBL CrystaProfi, sold as enough for a standard fish tank in the shop. Can't actually figure out what model it is, doesn't say but probably a e700 or 900..