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Advice on required bps

mfcphil

Member
Joined
11 Feb 2009
Messages
426
Could someone advise me on the required bps in my well planted 180L Juwel Tank.

At the moment its on 2bps but I am getting black hair algae on the leaf edges of some my my plants.

Should I up the CO2...if so what to?

Thanks for any help you can give!
 
I have 2 35w T5 bulbs with reflectors.

Waterflow is JUWEL internal on one side and FLUVAL 305 at the other.

The Juwel internal is also directed in a way to push the co2 from the diffuser around the tank
 
You really need a drop checker filled with 4dKH solution to govern how much CO2 you need. Bubble per second will vary with each bubble counter and is only used as a guide when adjusting the rate of CO2.
 
What bubble counter do you have?
I feel it really does make a difference when talking about bps.
I have one of these
Boyu-bubble-counter_LRG.jpg

and have about 3/4 bps!! with good surface agitation and my drop checker is almost lime green.
Different bubble counters give different sized bubles so differing bps can give different Co2 saturation.
 
If he's getting BBA on some plants etc... maybe upping the Co2 might help, and also try and get some more flow around the tank? I would up the Co2 to maybe 3-4 bps and keep an eye on the fish in case they start to respire heavily, if they do then thats too much. Have you thought about adding a Koralia circulation pump to increase the flow around the plants?
 
when upping Co2, just make sure you do it when you have a few hours spare to keep an eye on the tank, so you can either lower it or increase surface agitation.

Increase it ever so slowly over a few days until your drop checker reads right.
 
my drop checker is not one with the white background....so it looks dark green but when I change the water and the level is below the drop checker it appears light green
 
mfcphil said:
my drop checker is not one with the white background....so it looks dark green but when I change the water and the level is below the drop checker it appears light green

That sounds really weird. How long is the drop checker out of the water for? After a fairly short time (10, 20 minutes?) I would expect it to be dark blue when it's out of the water.

When you initially fill the drop checker is it a dark blue colour before you put it in the tank?

Mark
 
Not that weird....Dark Green in the water, maybe just because it looks darker than what it really is.

I set it up correctly 3 drops of blue into the 4dkh solution.

I change the drop check solution after every weekly water change.
 
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