Carbon Dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is one of the other major factors that will decide whether the plants grow to there full potential. There are currently a few ways to deliver this to the plants, some are easier and some are cheaper but they all do they same thing.
- Pressurised CO2 – Buying a pressurised bottle and having a solenoid valve is by far the easiest and best option, they only problem is price. The regulator will allow you to exactly tune the CO2 output to give you the best results and unlike DIY it will not leave a residue on your diffuser
- DIY CO2 – This will do the same thing as pressurised but is more
of a hassle and needs to be changed every few weeks. It will not work through a diffuser, but injecting it straight into the filter or into an up turned cup will work just fine. The upside is this is incredibly cheap, sugar is about $1 a kilo and a 2 litre bottle will only require 500g, so it’s around 60c a refill with the cost of yeast. Click on the title for a how-to guide. - CO2 Liquids – Seachem excel and other forms of carbon in a liquid work fine. This is not really a cost effective method though, and it may be a hassle to continue using the product every day or 2nd day.
- CO2 tabs – I have never tried these, but i don’t think they are at all effective and will only work for very small tanks, best to avoid these.
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Electronic CO2 – The electronically generated CO2 is also said to work ok, but once again only for smaller tanks, and the refills are considered slightly costly.
Choose carefully, but for the long term, if you truly believe you have a passion for aquariums and you have money to spend, buy the pressurised co2 and the biggest keg you can find. This will save you hours of fiddling around the kitchen with warm water and a packet of yeast.
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