I have filled two 25l water containers with tap water, added dechlor, screwed the lids back on them and am letting them sit until any CO2 from the tap has degassed.
In order to check that the CO2 level has reached equilibrium with the air I am going to measure the ph level and when it stops changing (rising?) then I deduce that equilibrium will have been reached.
Is this logic sound?
Do I need to leave the caps off of the water containers?
Anything else I have missed?
The driving force behind all this is that I want to make some water changes on my non CO2 tank as I have had some shrimp deaths and I think there is an ammonia spike\some toxicity in the water that water changes will help to remove.
As the tank is non CO2 if I carry out the water change with fresh tap water I will induce an outbreak of BBA in the tank due to the change in CO2 levels. I appreciate that water with CO2 at equilibrium with the air will not be an exact match of my tanks CO2 but I figure it will be as close as I can achieve.
I know this is clearly water chemistry related, but as it is pertinent for a low tech tank I have posted it in the low tech forum. I don't mind if it gets moved to water chemistry!
In order to check that the CO2 level has reached equilibrium with the air I am going to measure the ph level and when it stops changing (rising?) then I deduce that equilibrium will have been reached.
Is this logic sound?
Do I need to leave the caps off of the water containers?
Anything else I have missed?
The driving force behind all this is that I want to make some water changes on my non CO2 tank as I have had some shrimp deaths and I think there is an ammonia spike\some toxicity in the water that water changes will help to remove.
As the tank is non CO2 if I carry out the water change with fresh tap water I will induce an outbreak of BBA in the tank due to the change in CO2 levels. I appreciate that water with CO2 at equilibrium with the air will not be an exact match of my tanks CO2 but I figure it will be as close as I can achieve.
I know this is clearly water chemistry related, but as it is pertinent for a low tech tank I have posted it in the low tech forum. I don't mind if it gets moved to water chemistry!