[Plantednoob7]

First I must say I am new to planted tanks but this site his been absolutely invaluable to me in education and giving me the confidence to dive into this endeavor.

Stats: :75G freshwater tank
Finnex planted+ 24/7
Fluval G6 canister filter
Eco complete substrate
Semi automatic co2 injection

I was so lost about co2 but after lots of reading here i felt much more confident taking the plunge. As of now I'd say my tank is lightly planted as all my plants have not arrived yet. Currently i only have 3 emerald Cory's and 4 glofish in this newly setup tank. These were transferred from a 10G tank my son received as a gift. The plans for this tank is to be a fully planted discus tank.

My co2 question is in regards to PH. I set up my co2 system approximately 2 days ago. First day according to my drop checker my co2 was too low. The second day i bumped it to about 2 bubbles per second and my drop checker is now reading green. I noticed a significant drop in ph. It went from 7.6 to about 7.2.

I have my co2 set to run about 8 hours per day. My question is will the ph continue to drop each day or will the ph rise at night with co2 off? My main concern is stable ph for the discus.

 

[sl3xx]

The fish don't care about the pH, and even more so when the swings are directly caused by the CO2. pH swings are common when injecting CO2, up to 1 full point, 1.2, 1.3. You have nothing to worry about.

 

[rick dale]

Co2

Your pH will rise after the co2 goes off. You will start over each day , lowering the ph to where its needed for your plants. If you are considering a discus tank , you will be spending a fair amount of money to stock the fish. I strongly suggest you invest in a pH controller and an electric solenoid . a drop checker is a terribly inaccurate piece of equipment. I bought the best one GLA had to offer. It was a constant nightmare trying to adjust the co2 level. I eventually chunked it and got a pH controller and put an electric solenoid on my co2 tank. It was a dream come true. No more co2 worries.

 

[Plantednoob7]

Your pH will rise after the co2 goes off. You will start over each day , lowering the ph to where its needed for your plants. If you are considering a discus tank , you will be spending a fair amount of money to stock the fish. I strongly suggest you invest in a pH controller and an electric solenoid . a drop checker is a terribly inaccurate piece of equipment. I bought the best one GLA had to offer. It was a constant nightmare trying to adjust the co2 level. I eventually chunked it and got a pH controller and put an electric solenoid on my co2 tank. It was a dream come true. No more co2 worries.

Thanks for the info Rick. That's pretty much what I thought just wanted some feedback from someone with experience. I do have a solenoid on my tank. I may add the PH controller.

 

[PlantedRich]

Some background on the PH? The CO2 added forms carbonic acid when it reacts with things in the water. So adding a bit of acid does change the PH. Not to panic though as the fish do not care about this PH change. I keep African cichlids who are semi-famous for "needing" high PH. I have 7.8-8.0 water but when running CO2, I was able to get the cichlids down to 6.8 before they objected. In moving breeding fish around, I often moved females to tanks without CO2 for them to spit out the fry. The move to tanks with high PH/GH/KH was not a problem but the move back to suddenly find low made them act very groggy for a few hours. They tolerate slow changes very well.