# For those of you taking the NON-CO2 route



## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

Over @ monsterfishkeepers.com there is a sticky in the planted section that argues against, well argues that a nice planted tank does not necessarily need CO2 injection. Most of the information in itself is arguable coming from a side of whether or not you favor CO2......

If anything else, maybe a boost for those who either do not have the capital to layout for a costly system or would like to remain on a very low tank maintenance regime.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=247023


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## maknwar (Jul 16, 2007)

I agree and disagree with a lot of stuff in that discussion. Its true that the limiting factor is what determines the growth, but in most tanks its light. In my 75g, the limiting factor is CO2, therefore I need to add CO2. In my 125, the limiting factor is light, so therefore I dont need CO2. You dont need CO2 on a tank that has low light, and you need CO2 if you have very high light.


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## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

maknwar said:


> I agree and disagree with a lot of stuff in that discussion. Its true that the limiting factor is what determines the growth, but in most tanks its light. In my 75g, the limiting factor is CO2, therefore I need to add CO2. In my 125, the limiting factor is light, so therefore I dont need CO2. You dont need CO2 on a tank that has low light, and you need CO2 if you have very high light.


I agree with you 100%...............


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## ru4iowahawkeyes (May 11, 2009)

This is very interesting.. I just planted some plants with very poor lighting and they have died off some... and i just got a new light (full spectrum of course) and a new plant in the tank and i will be testing this lighting theory and see if there is much difference!

Very good topic though.. and i do believe it will work without CO2... but to certain degrees you will need it for some things like very high demanding plants...

Steve


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## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

Definitely on target....I guess all in all, you don't need to whole works to have a nice tank. There is a wide range of plants that will work just fine with lower lighting schemes and no CO2, that's not to say using CO2, there won't be any major differences.

For example, I had a Java Fern in my tank for about 5 months running no CO2 and low lighting. If anyone was unaware, the Java Fern is a very easy and non-demanding specie. As soon as I added CO2 and increased wattage, the thing took off. I noticed more growth in 1 month than I noticed in the 5 months prior.

Higher Lighting plus CO2 = more vigorous growth..... High lighting comes with its downfalls, I'm sure there are plenty of members on here that have either dealt, are dealing with or will deal with a wide array of algae types.

Whether highlight or low light, both have there ups and downs. I feel it really depends on the owner's willingness to maintain a highlight planted tank, patience and ability to construct a aesthetically appeasing tank.......

My take, if you want fast growth, lush green outlays and very high maintenance and cost requirements, go highlight/CO2.

If you want a few plants, low maintenance and low costs, go lowlight.


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## Ibanez247 (Nov 9, 2006)

maknwar said:


> I agree and disagree with a lot of stuff in that discussion. Its true that the limiting factor is what determines the growth, but in most tanks its light. In my 75g, the limiting factor is CO2, therefore I need to add CO2. In my 125, the limiting factor is light, so therefore I dont need CO2. You dont need CO2 on a tank that has low light, and you need CO2 if you have very high light.


I agree as well. I do dose with excel but its not a strict schedule. The first time I ever did palnts I didnt dose at all and Within a month I had a jungle going on. Light is the most important thing when it comes to plants. I think if you have enough water aggetation enough CO2 gets mixed where you dont need to inject it. While I dont see significant growth while dosing excel. I do notice the plants tend to be more colorful.


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## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

Plus, if you've ever read anything from Tom Barr or even spoken with him (nice guy and very helpful) he will almost always (relatively) point to "lack of CO2" as the main limiting factor in plant growth and the cause to an array of planted tank problems.

Not to get into a science discussion but I believe the main plant make up is carbon. Go figure......


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## Piranha Guru (Nov 24, 2005)

roccov12345 said:


> Plus, if you've ever read anything from Tom Barr or even spoken with him (nice guy and very helpful) he will almost always (relatively) point to "lack of CO2" as the main limiting factor in plant growth and the cause to an array of planted tank problems.
> 
> *Not to get into a science discussion but I believe the main plant make up is carbon. Go figure......*


That is correct...no carbon source = no plant growth. I think you will have more success in a low light pygo setup than a solo serra setup due to the fact that you will generate more CO2 and nitrogen products in that case. There are charts out there as well that show the correlation between pH, kH, and CO2 concentration. Depending on your source water, fish load, and light levels, you may have more than enough CO2 available.


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## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

BioTeAcH said:


> Plus, if you've ever read anything from Tom Barr or even spoken with him (nice guy and very helpful) he will almost always (relatively) point to "lack of CO2" as the main limiting factor in plant growth and the cause to an array of planted tank problems.
> 
> *Not to get into a science discussion but I believe the main plant make up is carbon. Go figure......*


That is correct...no carbon source = no plant growth. I think you will have more success in a low light pygo setup than a solo serra setup due to the fact that you will generate more CO2 and nitrogen products in that case. There are charts out there as well that show the correlation between pH, kH, and CO2 concentration. Depending on your source water, fish load, and light levels, you may have more than enough CO2 available.

[/quote]

That's a theory that seems to be overlooked quite often.........


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## maknwar (Jul 16, 2007)

BioTeAcH said:


> Plus, if you've ever read anything from Tom Barr or even spoken with him (nice guy and very helpful) he will almost always (relatively) point to "lack of CO2" as the main limiting factor in plant growth and the cause to an array of planted tank problems.
> 
> Not to get into a science discussion but I believe the main plant make up is carbon. Go figure......


That is correct...no carbon source = no plant growth. *I think you will have more success in a low light pygo setup than a solo serra setup due to the fact that you will generate more CO2 and nitrogen products in that case.* There are charts out there as well that show the correlation between pH, kH, and CO2 concentration. Depending on your source water, fish load, and light levels, you may have more than enough CO2 available.
[/quote]

I can almost prove this is true. When I had pygos in my 125g, my plants grew like crazy and I didnt dose anything except Excel. When I had my rhom in my 125g, I dose everything that was needed but the plant didnt seem to do as good.


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## redbellyman21 (Jun 27, 2004)

all 4 of my freshwater tanks are planted, and the amount of fishload is a huge role. I have a 37 high with lil tetras and medium light, plants grow and sustain but no explosion, my 72 bow with 2 breeding dempeseys and a red devil and para friedy the plants explode! My serra tank has all low light anubias and grows at a slow rate but never any die off. The theory of heating the floor of the tank, layered with an inch of high iron sand substrate, with larger pebbles up top creates a perfect layer of anerobic bacteria as well as having a huge layer of aerobic bacteria, added with the slow heat currents brought to you by the heater cable, maintains the substrate and doesnt allow the substrate to turn to mush and starve the roots. The substrate plays a huge role as well as the ph, kh and co2 formulas! If you do a low light/med light planted tank, and dont use a nice fertile soil, u will have root rot after a long time... I also believe a nice sugar yeast co2 setup is really not that high maintence, and if your arent a diy'er just buy the kit for 30 bux, and after a month use ur own sugar yeast formula.. it wont create 500000ppm ROFL but it will help


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## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

redbellyman21 said:


> all 4 of my freshwater tanks are planted, and the amount of fishload is a huge role. I have a 37 high with lil tetras and medium light, plants grow and sustain but no explosion, my 72 bow with 2 breeding dempeseys and a red devil and para friedy the plants explode! My serra tank has all low light anubias and grows at a slow rate but never any die off. The theory of heating the floor of the tank, layered with an inch of high iron sand substrate, with larger pebbles up top creates a perfect layer of anerobic bacteria as well as having a huge layer of aerobic bacteria, added with the slow heat currents brought to you by the heater cable, maintains the substrate and doesnt allow the substrate to turn to mush and starve the roots. The substrate plays a huge role as well as the ph, kh and co2 formulas! If you do a low light/med light planted tank, and dont use a nice fertile soil, u will have root rot after a long time... I also believe a nice sugar yeast co2 setup is really not that high maintence, and if your arent a diy'er just buy the kit for 30 bux, and after a month use ur own sugar yeast formula.. it wont create 500000ppm ROFL but it will help


I'm finding that the DIY CO2 method could cause additional problems for users who don't understand entirely. I have seen first hand in the past and through others that fluctuating CO2 levels are never a good idea. I don't think I understand the entire science of the fact, but every time I ran into algae and plant issues there had been a interrupt in CO2 delivery. I'm not sure if anyone has accurately proven whether DIY CO2 causes issues when the bottles start to fizz out. Another thing about DIY is that you're limited to the size of your tank. I really feel anything over say 30 gallons, should not be fit with DIY CO2. It just doesn't deliver enough..............

So as a wrap up, if you have a 75 gallon tank and want a highlight CO2 combo, you shouldn't even think about DIY..... Just my 2 cents....


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## redbellyman21 (Jun 27, 2004)

absoloutely right, my bad, I forgot to mention I only used diy sugar/yeast for small under 35 g tanks! but the heated substrate does help and the huge colonies of bacteria enriches the soil and produces co2

side note, never had any negative blooms of algae from my diy plans, I never let it go longer than a month without flushing the mix of sugar and yeast tho.. so u know..


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## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

redbellyman21 said:


> absoloutely right, my bad, I forgot to mention I only used diy sugar/yeast for small under 35 g tanks! but the heated substrate does help and the huge colonies of bacteria enriches the soil and produces co2
> 
> side note, never had any negative blooms of algae from my diy plans, I never let it go longer than a month without flushing the mix of sugar and yeast tho.. so u know..


Never tried the underground heater, how did you go about setting that up......?


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## Piranha Guru (Nov 24, 2005)

roccov12345 said:


> Never tried the underground heater, how did you go about setting that up......?


Easiest way is to get the Hydor cable system...put it down before your substrate and attach the external control module. I've seen some DIY ways too where PVC pipe is layed out, a heater is installed in an uptube, and a powerhead is installed to another uptube for circulation. Basically the powerhead sucks the water through, but there are other variations where it pushes it through. That would be better and cheaper for large tanks.


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## roccov12345 (Sep 26, 2008)

BioTeAcH said:


> Never tried the underground heater, how did you go about setting that up......?


Easiest way is to get the Hydor cable system...put it down before your substrate and attach the external control module. I've seen some DIY ways too where PVC pipe is layed out, a heater is installed in an uptube, and a powerhead is installed to another uptube for circulation. Basically the powerhead sucks the water through, but there are other variations where it pushes it through. That would be better and cheaper for large tanks.
[/quote]

Makes sense, thanks for the clarification...

Another good read relative to tanks w/o CO2....

http://www.barrreport.com/articles/433-non-co2-methods.html


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