Rogger Castells
New member
I haven't wrote in a while but I am always reading our forum and I see we have a lot of new members which I am happy to see, I would like to start a conversation about something that a lot of us don't really check in our tanks but IMO is very important for a healthy tank.
These are Oxygen & CO2 content in the water.
Oxygen and CO2 are a gasses when is in the air but they dissolve in the water, dissolved Oxygen is imperative to fish and dissolved CO2 is important to marine plants as they need it to photosynthesis and thus produce oxygen.
There are kids that can measure dissolve O2 which are very common, there are also a few companies making probes that are control by your current computers.
Co2 testing is almost unheard of in the hobby but I found that there is a direct correlation between the dissolved CO2 content in the water and the health of the tank in general, there are several companies that sell CO2 test kits like LaMotte and Hach there are also several independent electronic test devices for a faster testing.
Co2 acts like a fertilizer in tanks as it use for photosynthesis, it usually accumulates higher than need and since most of us don't check it we don't know what to correct. Most living organism in our tank produce CO2 on top of that Calcium reactors use CO2 to dissolve the lime media and that adds to the CO2 accumulation, and if that wasn't enough, in a normal house here in south fl which keeps the windows down and ac on all day, co2 increases and your air pumps and protein skimmer injected in the water and Bamm! you got excess co2!
Refugiums in a tank if set up correctly help keep the balance of this dissolved gasses in check, they utilized the dissolved CO2 in photosynthesis and produce oxygen which is then utilized by the fish and corals.
I Plan to by a Co2 meter as soon as I set my tank back up, I have been monitoring both by ways of test kits for years and find it essential for the well being of the animals we care for, I hope that this help you guys, Cheers!
These are Oxygen & CO2 content in the water.
Oxygen and CO2 are a gasses when is in the air but they dissolve in the water, dissolved Oxygen is imperative to fish and dissolved CO2 is important to marine plants as they need it to photosynthesis and thus produce oxygen.
There are kids that can measure dissolve O2 which are very common, there are also a few companies making probes that are control by your current computers.
Co2 testing is almost unheard of in the hobby but I found that there is a direct correlation between the dissolved CO2 content in the water and the health of the tank in general, there are several companies that sell CO2 test kits like LaMotte and Hach there are also several independent electronic test devices for a faster testing.
Co2 acts like a fertilizer in tanks as it use for photosynthesis, it usually accumulates higher than need and since most of us don't check it we don't know what to correct. Most living organism in our tank produce CO2 on top of that Calcium reactors use CO2 to dissolve the lime media and that adds to the CO2 accumulation, and if that wasn't enough, in a normal house here in south fl which keeps the windows down and ac on all day, co2 increases and your air pumps and protein skimmer injected in the water and Bamm! you got excess co2!
Refugiums in a tank if set up correctly help keep the balance of this dissolved gasses in check, they utilized the dissolved CO2 in photosynthesis and produce oxygen which is then utilized by the fish and corals.
I Plan to by a Co2 meter as soon as I set my tank back up, I have been monitoring both by ways of test kits for years and find it essential for the well being of the animals we care for, I hope that this help you guys, Cheers!