Advice: RCS and CO2 injection. PH swings detrimental?
I'm planning to add 20 RCS to my 60p (17g) high-tech planted tank ( https://imgur.com/a/sgsuP ) and I'm trying to make it the best home possible for my little shrimp friends.
What is the best way to inject CO2 in a planted shrimp tank? I have a home-built controller with PH probe that I can program to do whatever. Should I set it up to hold the PH to a tight range ( for example 7 +/- .1 ph ) injecting CO2 as needed to hold it down? Would this cause algae issues due to varying levels of Co2 in the water?
What about aeration? Would the shrimp benefit from having an air stone running when the CO2 is off? How are other people with high-tech planted shrimp tanks controlling their CO2?
Here are the tank stats: o Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate = 0/0/0 4 days after 30% water change o Water is RO water + Salty Shrimp GH/KH+ to about 100 TDS in bucket o TDS as measured in tank: 157 o KH/GH as measured in tank just after lights and CO2 off: 7/8
I have the CO2 injection on a timer that starts 2 hours before lights come on, and stops an hour before lights are off. The PH currently swings from 7.5 just before Co2 starts to 6.4 when it turns off. You can see the PH curve over time here: https://imgur.com/a/Y180y
I've been really cranking the Co2 ( > 1 bubble per second) since flooding to get all the plants established and I'm still getting incredible growth with only 4 hours of light and fairly minimal algae growth ( some green dust algae on the rocks and a little thread algae around the edges ), but I could back off the Co2 rate for the benefit of the shrimpies if needed.
Posted Oct 30, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC · edited