I have read loads of guides and been using co2 for the past 2 months or so but been reading afew different posts which bring up points that arnt mentioned in guides and i need help as i nearly overdosed my fish with co2 yesterday, not very good at writing posts so please bare with me
setup is rio 125, koralia 2 power head, tetratex ex700 filter,rhinox 5000 diffuser right onder powerhead, dd co2 set with timer comes on 2 hours before lights on and finishes 2 hours before lights out, lights are on for 9 hours a day using arcadia luminaire 3 x 24w t5's, using 2 drop checkers at the minute in different heights in the tank first one is in the middle left hand side of the tank opposite side of the rhinox 500 diffuser, the second is redsea drop checker mounted 3 inches below the other.
Basically started off with the koralia make loads of surface ripple as it was mounted near the surface and the spray bar pointing down and found i was using loads of co2, at lights out the drop checker would be lime green and in the morning it would be blue but i was getting loads of algea problems probably due to the co2 changing so much, so read another post that said that surface ripple made the gasses escape so i moved the powerhead down the glass so it made very little surface movement if any at all and restared the co2 set from the begining and left my airpump on from 10 at night till 10 in the morning. For the next few days i slowly adjusted the co2 till the point i thought it was lime green at night but noticed in the morning's it was getting a lighter shade of green the more the days went on ( also found i was not using amuch co2 as before) until one night it was yellow at lights out ( other one higher up was still green) so went to bed and put the airpump on abit power more the normal but came down in the morning and found it was still yellow and the fish gasping for breath ( all survived by being removed ) which brings me to my first post on here, so questions are whats the best place to position the drop checker as i was getting 2 different colours the lower down it went, what shall i do about surface ripple how much should the be if any at all, should i be aiming for lime green at night and blue before co2 is switched on in the morning or just a steady lime green colour all day and night inluding before lights/co2 on. any other suggestion are welcome and really sorry for the long post just trying to get as much info in here as possible as im probably not far off getting it right. cheers steve
setup is rio 125, koralia 2 power head, tetratex ex700 filter,rhinox 5000 diffuser right onder powerhead, dd co2 set with timer comes on 2 hours before lights on and finishes 2 hours before lights out, lights are on for 9 hours a day using arcadia luminaire 3 x 24w t5's, using 2 drop checkers at the minute in different heights in the tank first one is in the middle left hand side of the tank opposite side of the rhinox 500 diffuser, the second is redsea drop checker mounted 3 inches below the other.
Basically started off with the koralia make loads of surface ripple as it was mounted near the surface and the spray bar pointing down and found i was using loads of co2, at lights out the drop checker would be lime green and in the morning it would be blue but i was getting loads of algea problems probably due to the co2 changing so much, so read another post that said that surface ripple made the gasses escape so i moved the powerhead down the glass so it made very little surface movement if any at all and restared the co2 set from the begining and left my airpump on from 10 at night till 10 in the morning. For the next few days i slowly adjusted the co2 till the point i thought it was lime green at night but noticed in the morning's it was getting a lighter shade of green the more the days went on ( also found i was not using amuch co2 as before) until one night it was yellow at lights out ( other one higher up was still green) so went to bed and put the airpump on abit power more the normal but came down in the morning and found it was still yellow and the fish gasping for breath ( all survived by being removed ) which brings me to my first post on here, so questions are whats the best place to position the drop checker as i was getting 2 different colours the lower down it went, what shall i do about surface ripple how much should the be if any at all, should i be aiming for lime green at night and blue before co2 is switched on in the morning or just a steady lime green colour all day and night inluding before lights/co2 on. any other suggestion are welcome and really sorry for the long post just trying to get as much info in here as possible as im probably not far off getting it right. cheers steve