Looking for recommendation on my planted refugium mainly on the CO2 DIY or pressurize

[Raul]

So i started this project probably 3 months ago just to augment the capacity of my cichilid tanks with a planted refugium to reduce the nitrates, but now I turned into a hobby inside my hobby :).

The refugium is a 20 long, recently changed the lighting to probably 2.8 Watts per gallon total 56W, still on 3000K waiting on my 6500K, and I am doing DIY CO2 with 3X2lit bottles and the fluval 88G diffuser and it is able to generate a good amount of bubbles.

This week is when I added the lighting and an extra bottle, waiting on some Fourmost Bulkhead Fittings to modify my DIY bottles to be more air tight and to avoid leaks. The flow is constant since the inlet from my 55G hits directly where the diffuser is and the outlet back to the tank is in the opposite side so it seems the bubbles are getting distributed everywhere in the tank.

I have been debating to get a pressurized system but do not want to spend more., it seems the tank is doing good just changing the lighting and adding the 3rd bottle to the DIY CO2 has made the plants to start pearling, do i am in the right path to stay on DIY CO2 or should I really move towards pressurized, I know DIY is in constant variation of gas but it seems so far is doing great, I assume if I replace a bottle a week the CO2 will stay constant. ( I am also feeding IRON, seachem flourish and the the gravel is a mix of color and substrate for planted aquarium).

PLANTED_TANK_1.jpg

[Totenkampf]

cycling three diy bottles on different replacement schedules is about as high tech low tech as you can get, just make sure you have airline checkvalves in the tubes so that the yeasty mess cant back up into the aquarium. co2 proof tubing is a good idea too if you are not already doing that. look into yeast recipes calling for wine making yeast and jello / gelatin mixtures and it should work fine, its just more maintenance than CP (constant pressure). your lights look sufficient. maybe add some root tabs around the swords since your soil could be better. plant roots dont really like big gravel, small filter sand is better but you may just want to sit back and watch for a while and the plants will tell you what they need. if you are trying to save some cash, making your own fertilizer can save a bunch. look up PMDD or PPS-Pro dosing regimes and buy dry fertilizers from Green Leaf Aquariums, Bob's Tropical Pants, or Aquarium Fertilizers online. If you know of a local hydroponics supply store then they will have dry goods too.

once you decide to move to a dedicated planted tank (you know you will lol) and reset your refugium for the cichlids, consider dropping the water level and growing bog plants in there hydroponically. you wont need special ferts and emersed plants like spathyphillum or pothos will drink up nitrates far better than aqaurium plants.

[Raul]

cycling three diy bottles on different replacement schedules is about as high tech low tech as you can get, just make sure you have airline checkvalves in the tubes so that the yeasty mess cant back up into the aquarium. co2 proof tubing is a good idea too if you are not already doing that. look into yeast recipes calling for wine making yeast and jello / gelatin mixtures and it should work fine, its just more maintenance than CP (constant pressure). your lights look sufficient. maybe add some root tabs around the swords since your soil could be better. plant roots dont really like big gravel, small filter sand is better but you may just want to sit back and watch for a while and the plants will tell you what they need. if you are trying to save some cash, making your own fertilizer can save a bunch. look up PMDD or PPS-Pro dosing regimes and buy dry fertilizers from Green Leaf Aquariums, Bob's Tropical Pants, or Aquarium Fertilizers online. If you know of a local hydroponics supply store then they will have dry goods too.

once you decide to move to a dedicated planted tank (you know you will lol) and reset your refugium for the cichlids, consider dropping the water level and growing bog plants in there hydroponically. you wont need special ferts and emersed plants like spathyphillum or pothos will drink up nitrates far better than aqaurium plants.

Thanks for the input, very helpful, well I hope I do not get the bug to get me a bigger tank, since I do not have space to put them, if I do so I have to first upgrade my cichlid tank to a 90+ gal and well I guess I will upgrade my refugium to something larger but the same setup as a refugium. I have been banned from any room of my house except my office ;-).

I will look into the dry ferts, and well I am going to put a 4th bottle once I get the Fourmost Bulkhead Fittings, right now I have the caps of the bottles with the normal way the hose and silicon on them but I assume with the fittings they are going to be right on.

right now all my plants are pearling , is there are rule of thump of the amount of pearling and the health of the plants or that is not a strict relation, I assume the pearling is more because of the lighting since before i had them with a CFL that was supposed to be 6000K and 30W but well it was a CFL what can i say :|.

[Totenkampf]

pearling is just oxygen bubbles forming on the surface of the plants as they aspirate. when they are doing this then you have everything going right and in high gear. some plants do more than others and some just tend to let off a small stream of bubbles. its helpful to see that within a given plant species but not so much if you are comparing one to the other. ergo, just because HC is doing it doesnt mean that you should be seeing the swords doing the same or else assume that they are lacking something

[Totenkampf]

i forgot to mention that the only really negative thing about DIY vs. CP CO2 injection is that you can shut off the CP at night with the lights when the plants arent using it, with the DIY going all night then you are depleting oxygen along with what the fish and plants are using which could stress your fish. if you try blocking off your DIY hose at night you will end up popping the cap of the bottle.

[Raul]

yep I thought about that, the upper thank has well filtration and air stones so I guess at least they are getting well oxygenated, and well the refugium has shrimp and snails not sure how stress they get.

One of this days I will get me the pressurized, I saw the aquatek which seems pretty good, but still will endup around $100+ for that and the tank even if I go with the 20oz paintball ones.

[Totenkampf]

sounds good, congrats on having a rare freshwater refugium. we used them on amphibian tanks at the zoo quite a bit, i think they should be used more with these heavily populated cichlid tanks. i ran a HOB refugium on a well stocked rainbowfish tank years back, it worked well and it looked cool since it was open topped and had all those plants poking out the top.

[Raul]

TotenKampf, thanks for the tips again I already went and order the dry ferts for doing my own mix, now I will probably do the PPS-PRO which is the most simple one, the only thing I was not able to find out, is can i ommit some of the ingridients like for example the KNO3, i mean my cichilds are already producing enough NO3 with the food and waste, why add more of it and well the potassium it seems it is in the other chemicals to, what do you think?

[Totenkampf]

yes you can as long as you monitor your nitrates so that there are some present, if any of the nutrients are completely depleted then you may as well not dose at all. i target .10 - .15 nitrates for plant growth. i also prefer the PPS-Pro, just remember to do your water change on the 7th day so that things dont build up too high

[Raul]

right now my nitrates are between .10 ~ .20 and they pretty much stay on that for 2 weeks, I been doing every 2 week water changes, but now with the PPS will get back to weekly changes, my cichlid tank produces enough waste and also the load is incremental since I have fry (keni and red top) that have surived and are getting bigger will need to donate them soon.

[Raul]

I finally got the 6500K bulbs, I like better the intensity, I assume the plants too, also I added a power head with a spray bar, and connected some PVC tubbing so the ouput of the diffuser gets sucked into the power head and I am seeing more pearling, I guess I am a happy camper now.


Now I hope my current plants get better after months of low light and not really the care it should.

[Totenkampf]

looking good, the 6500k lights are pleasing to us because they are closer to natural sunlight. i feel 6500k is a good temperature for plants although it some cases you cant assume that just becuase it looks good to us that its good for them. we see primarily in the green and yellow spectrums while plants need peaks in the higher blue and red spectrums. i have seen some of the high quality LED fixtures that didnt look all that intense to me but were targeted for those specific spikes (with 6400k CRee emitters) and the plants were going nuts. conversly the 5000k pure white bulbs look good to us but are poor for plants