Co2 on all day???

[The Abbott]

Hi all, here is yet another dumb question from me....

I have a solenoid on my regulator connected to a timer, my question is how long do I set the co2 to switch on for? Is it on all day or only when the tank lights come on??

Rich

One day I will understand all this lol

 

[chrisfraser05]

the idea is you want there to be co2 ready for when the lights come on so the plants get going straight away.

Also you can quite easily turn it off before the end of the photo period and allow the plants to use most of the co2 up just as the lights turn off.

I am going to be starting the CO2 in mine 2 hours before the lights and off an hour before.

Every tank will be different though so you should tweek it to suit. Keep your eye on your drop checker, your fish and your plants... eventually you will just know its right

 

[The Abbott]

cheers for the quick reply matey, thanks for the info - very helpful

Rich

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Every tank will be different though so you should tweek it to suit

Never been a truer word said. I could do with getting a solenoid as I'm back to working away again so my tanks took a back seat In the meantime I have knocked off one of my light tubes and just left my co2 running 24/7 at about 2bps which I trialled for a couple of week before going away and seem to be getting away with it. Like the man says though it's tank specific and I can get away with it because my tank is over effective at de-gassing co2.
The risk being having co2 running 24/7 of gassing the fish through the night when the plants are not only not using the co2 but also giving off co2 so I guess the timed method is safer all round.

I'm not sure of the economics of it though whether it uses more co2 having it running at an higher bps rate to get enough in 2 hours before and off at nights or having a lower bps rate running constantly