Fishbone, and all,
I finally ordered a CO2 system. I just bit the bullet and orderd a complete system from CO2Art. It took a while to get the order placed even using PayPal because it triggered a potential fraud alert on my cards. Had both mine and my husbands cards not working before we realized what had happened. I guess because it is a U.K. company and was converting US funds. Paid extra for expedited shipping only because the other shipping methods stated they did not have tracking. Got everything in today and it all looks good and well made.
I am beginning to wonder now after researching for the large tank (125gal) I am planning to set up whether or not I even want to use CO2. I decided I probably used a cheap substrate so I was researching different ones and realized I probably didn't use enough in my current tank to start with, which may be one of its issues. I also read about one called ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia that sounds wonderful for many reasons but what appealed to me was the claim that it lowered the hardness of the water, and with my very hard water that could be of great benefit. But the price at needing 2lbs/gal would put it around $368 for for my 125gal tank. I had also read he cheapest route is actual soil, potting soil, garden soil, or soil from the back yard but that this method could be risky do to chemicals, pesticides, & metals and if one was going to try it they needed to be sure and read Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise by Diana Louise Walstad. I found the book and have just scratched the surface of it but my thoughts so far are that I am going to try a soil substrate using her method in my large tank when I set it up and only have plants with low CO2 demands in so that I do not need to inject CO2. I believe this is the way I want to go not just because of the set-up price will be less but because it sounds like the cost to sustain the tank will be less, it will require less upkeep, and it will be a healthier tank for the fish.
I will probably temporarily move my community fish into my large tank once I have it set up and cycled so that I can re-do the substrate on my 47gal unless it makes a huge improvement with the injection of CO2 and I just can't stand to tare it down.
I really like the idea of aquascaping and ran across this article that has a sort of CO2 calculator that can be used to calculate recommended bubbles per second of CO2 into the aquarium and a ppm depending on planting level specified. http://aquariuminfo.org/index.html http://aquariuminfo.org/co2calculator.html
I have one of the glass CO2 Drop Checker Kits but without injecting CO2 it has never changed colors. I got new solution and will replace it when I start injecting CO2. I will let you know if it seems to work. I will take some before and after pictures and post if I can figure out how to on this site.
