Is CO₂ Worth It?

[cdlourie]

I really need/want to redo my guys 20 gal. Live plants are a must, and I don't know if I should jerry-rig a CO₂ diffuser or not. Also, any ideas for the tank layout or any neat plants? Another thing, what kind of substrate should I get? I really want to go for sand.

[kelly528]

It really depends on your other factors. The popular theory in biology is that the resource (eg. CO2, Light, Nitrogen, Potassium, etc.) in the lowest supply will limit your growth. So if you have all the CO2 in the world but are only running 40W of light or have a nitrogen deficiency, your plants will only grow as much as they can based on the lighting or nitrogen supply. So in layman's terms, unless you are dosing a full regime of ferts and have at least 60W of fluorescent light or T5HO lighting, CO2 won't make much of a difference.

For the substrate, plants go best in a special nutrient enriched substrate like Eco-Complete, Aquasoil or Fluorite. I have a mixture of 75% eco-complete and 25% black sand in the tank in my signature and the plants are growing great (even with no carbon and aboout 1 WPG of light).

[cdlourie]

Originally Posted by kelly528

It really depends on your other factors. The popular theory in biology is that the resource (eg. CO2, Light, Nitrogen, Potassium, etc.) in the lowest supply will limit your growth. So if you have all the CO2 in the world but are only running 40W of light or have a nitrogen deficiency, your plants will only grow as much as they can based on the lighting or nitrogen supply. So in layman's terms, unless you are dosing a full regime of ferts and have at least 60W of fluorescent light or T5HO lighting, CO2 won't make much of a difference.

For the substrate, plants go best in a special nutrient enriched substrate like Eco-Complete, Aquasoil or Fluorite. I have a mixture of 75% eco-complete and 25% black sand in the tank in my signature and the plants are growing great (even with no carbon and aboout 1 WPG of light).

I planed on using all the fertilizers and having a decent lighting system. Do you think I should go for Glosso or dwarf hairgrass?

[Hadouken441]

Like stated you need all factors to have good plant growth. It gets pretty expensive.

And ferts and light wont let any of those plants carpet like you would want.

my glosso is under 72Watts with pressurized co2 and micro and macro ferts. Its carpeting extremelly fast. i get a about 15 new plantlets a day from runners.


If you want an easy carpet plant do Marsilea Minuta. Looks just like glosso but is super super easy. I have about a 3 in by 3in square of it if you want to buy some