Alternative carbon source

[ony]

I went to an aquatics show yesterday and one of the speakers said he used carbonated water instead of glut for his pico tanks. Has anyone tried this and most importantly is it fish safe?

The speaker ran away before questions could be asked so I'm not sure how often he dosed but he said it should be used at 1ml per 10 liters.

[treckel]

It is CO2 that makes the carbonation in carbonated water. I would think that this would be a terribly inefficient way to provide CO2 to any tank. I can't see that you would be able to put enough in to make any difference. Maybe I am wrong though.

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[Diana]

Perhaps if there was some way of...
a) keeping its fizz under control (fizz is CO2 leaving)
b) metering it out slowly over several days or longer so there is a steady supply.

...that might be one answer.

[hotrodprincess]

I use carbonated water for my Marimo ball It had a couple small light brown spots on it when i bought it. someone recommended I give it a carbonated water dip every now and then to help the brown spots go away. I have a soda stream so I just made a little carbonated water put it in a cup and let the marimo ball float in it for a little while. Then I put the ball back in the fish tank. Im not sure how it would work putting the carbonated water in the tank. I was afraid to put the carbonated water right in the tank because I have fish so I wasn't sure how much would be OK for the fish.

[ony]

TBH I was more worried about the safety aspect than anything else. Fizzy water does contain a small amount of salt and I'm not sure if the bubbles would do my fish any good. If it is completely fish safe trying it would be the best way of finding out if it works.

[Hoppy]

Carbonated water is water plus carbon dioxide, kept under enough pressure that the CO2 stays in solution in the water. When you open the bottle, CO2 starts escaping from the water. When you pour it into the tank, more CO2 escapes. What's left is CO2 added to your tank, for the short time before it all leaves from the water surface. You could kill the fish by adding too much at one time, just as you can kill them by adding CO2 any other way. Amano is said to have started using CO2 by using carbonated water.

[ony]

I found the relevant bit in Amano's first book however he only wrote about his first experiment when he used far higher doses and doesn't even mention fish (It must have been a plant only tank or it would be a very cruel experiment). At 1ml per 10 liters its clearly not designed to have the same effect as a full CO2 injection system and should be far less likely to gas the fish than injected CO2. That doesn't automatically make it fish safe though and while I'm more than happy to experiment on my plants, I'm not risking my livestock.

[Matt1977]

Originally Posted by Hoppy

Carbonated water is water plus carbon dioxide, kept under enough pressure that the CO2 stays in solution in the water. When you open the bottle, CO2 starts escaping from the water. When you pour it into the tank, more CO2 escapes. What's left is CO2 added to your tank, for the short time before it all leaves from the water surface. You could kill the fish by adding too much at one time, just as you can kill them by adding CO2 any other way. Amano is said to have started using CO2 by using carbonated water.

Hoppy is correct. However, pouring carbonated water into the tank could cause a PH crash as well - its PH is about 2-3.... Very unreliable and detrimental to PH sensitive fauna|flora.

[ony]

I'm skeptical that in a ratio of 1:1000 that it would have much of an impact on PH at all, less than injected CO2 I would suspect. Very easy theory to test though with a bucket of tank water and a decent liquid test kit.

[ony]

So no one has first hand experience of using this in an aquarium?

[Diana]

I think it would bubble off too fast, so you would have a good level of CO2 for a few minutes, then the plants would use it all, or it would out gas. You would have to dose it every few minutes all day long.
Anything you get to auto-dose usually will have the carbonated water exposed to the air, so it will lose the CO2 anyway.

[ony]

Originally Posted by Diana

I think it would bubble off too fast, so you would have a good level of CO2 for a few minutes, then the plants would use it all, or it would out gas. You would have to dose it every few minutes all day long.
Anything you get to auto-dose usually will have the carbonated water exposed to the air, so it will lose the CO2 anyway.

Even if it was easy to pump in the carbonated water and create a constant supply of it, it doesn't sound very healthy for the tanks inhabitants. Bottled carbonated water is not just water with carbon dioxide in it; it can also contain salt (NaCl) and brands that list TDS are near 1000 ppm. Having said that I have found a supermarket own brand that looks ok so I think I'm going to have a go with that when I get back from America.