# Co2 to start off plant growth?



## cape (Oct 26, 2013)

I was thinking, is it a good idea to use DIY CO2 at the beginning stages of a planted tank to help start filling in the tank?

My main goal would be a low tech tank in the end, so after a couple of months would remove the CO2. Or would this just be asking for trouble, algae, plants melting etc?


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

When our plants grow they adjust their production of various enzymes to match the conditions they are growing in. CO2 is one of the variables that affect that enzyme production. So, when you start the plants off with CO2, they are all adjusted to live with that CO2, but when you then stop the CO2, they have to slow down or stop their growth until the get their chemistry attuned to the new conditions. You can expect to be disappointed by the amount of melting, the opportunistic algae growths, etc.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

To be honest I'm doing this right now lol. Just simple DIY CO2. I plan on putting shrimp in this tank, which means I need to eventually get rid of the CO2. I don't plan on stopping it all of a sudden though. I'm going to be tapering it slowly. Probably by just letting my yeast bottles slowly run out until dry. I don't know if I'm going to be hit extremely hard or not, but most of my plants are hardy, so who knows.


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## THE V (Nov 17, 2011)

Done this successfully and unsuccessfully in the past. The trick is to inject the co2 at a lower level and make sure your lighting is not too much. You want to give them a little boost without making them dependent completely in it. 

One of my worst green bombs was by doing this with too much light. Lower light and lower CO2 is the best way to go.


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## barakainus (May 15, 2009)

you can do it. to overcome the initial insufficiency of co2. in a mature aquarium is a decent production of CO2, so at some point, you can stop dosing. Of course, keeping dosing is better, even if you want to do low-light tank. You can always dial co2 dowwn with lowering your light level.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

I did this with a 30PAR light intensity, with DIY CO2. The plants grew in very well, but when I let the CO2 taper off to nothing, most of the plants melted, and never did recover. I ended up with only a couple of species of plants, both of which managed to keep growing slowly.


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## TekWarren (Oct 6, 2013)

Any thoughts as to if weaning off DIY CO2 while at the same time introducing the use of glut would work? For example as you work downwards on the amount of DIY CO2 if you started dosing glut increasing the dosage each week would plants adjust better? 

I'm up to 6 DIY yeast bottles on my 40B and it is working, not really much of a hassle per say but I still deal with bits of BBA. I'm currently dosing a small amount of metricide on top of my DIY CO2. Drop checker was yellow, lately green so not sure if this is normal since I didn't have a drop checker before.


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## Little Soprano (Mar 13, 2014)

Not to hijack this thread or anything..... I've been using DIY CO2 for about 2 weeks now, and I was planning to take it out in about 2 months from now or whenever I run out of yeast, which ever comes first. It's going to be a Tiger Shrimp tank, so I can't keep the CO2 going. My full plant list will be Anubias Nana Petite, Willow Moss, Fissidens Fontanus, and hydrocotyle tripartita, with maybe christmas moss as well. Will these guys be able to take the CO2 being taken away? Or should I just take it out now. Worried everythings going to die off. I don't mind some die off and a recovery, but don't want all of it to die.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

TekWarren said:


> Any thoughts as to if weaning off DIY CO2 while at the same time introducing the use of glut would work?


It might work, but what I suspect is the case is that different plants respond better to CO2 vs gluteraldehyde; the two aren't direct substitutes for each other.

So I think you'd have better results if you just stuck with one or the other.

That's just theory on my end, YMMV!


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Little Soprano said:


> Not to hijack this thread or anything..... I've been using DIY CO2 for about 2 weeks now, and I was planning to take it out in about 2 months from now or whenever I run out of yeast, which ever comes first. It's going to be a Tiger Shrimp tank, so I can't keep the CO2 going. My full plant list will be Anubias Nana Petite, Willow Moss, Fissidens Fontanus, and hydrocotyle tripartita, with maybe christmas moss as well. Will these guys be able to take the CO2 being taken away? Or should I just take it out now. Worried everythings going to die off. I don't mind some die off and a recovery, but don't want all of it to die.


The mosses and anubias don't need CO2 to do well, but the h. tripartta may need CO2. Here is what Tropica has to say: http://www.tropica.com/en/plants/plantdescription.aspx?pid=039B If I was trying this I would just use Excel or equivalent from the start. I think it would work.


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## Seedreemer (Sep 28, 2008)

I used to always start my tanks out this way. I also over planted and planted a lot of quick growing plants. After a few months I'd stop the co2, but that part was gradual as what would happen is I'd keep forgetting to mix up a fresh batch. In other words, I used my natural procrastination tendencies.


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## redant (May 6, 2014)

Plants have a tough time adapting to NO Co2 from Co2 even if it's a DIY CO2...as most members have pointed out, the tirck is to gradually reduce it...over a period of couple of months rather than stopping it all at once. Tom Barr has reported that sudden fluctuations in CO2 levels can trigger large scale algae growth aslo


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