Yes, I am delighted with the lower light, lower CO2, and with the river silt mixed with SM, too. The amazing thing to me is that the plants have such great color. Why bother with pushing CO2 to 30 ppm and having to shut it down at night, when half of that amount gives such good results, but doesn't need to be shut off at all? It seems to me that the benefit of keeping a rock steady ppm of CO2 outweighs the higher concentration.

But the key to that is having lower light, which still produces nice growth and colors.
Europeans have been doing this method for many decades.
Many in the USA seem to assume that you can do this and have the same management with high light and maintain low CO2/lower nutrients.

That does not address the light, which is part of the balance.
I've been telling folks for well over a decade, you do not need high light to have the nice successful healthly, fully planted tank.

But tbhere are those that insist on telling others that you need "high light"(3 or more watts, 4 w/gal is good etc) for Gloss, Hair grass, various stem plants.

Which is complete and utter rubbish.
I've grown these at 1.5-2w/gal, so have many in the local SFBAAPS club before PC lighting was popular.

When I started adding 30ppm to account for the high light using MH lighting, several others had done so, even up to 40ppm namely a few people in Germany according to Karen Randall.
They had no issues with fish like me.

So high CO2 is not bad either.
But less CO2 is fine alos if you have less light.

BTW, shutting CO2 off at night whether you have 15ppm or 30ppm is stilol better for fish, but there's less issue.

So you have more management options like leaving it run 24/7, but that's namely for simplicity, not because 15 ppm chronic is better than periodic 30ppm with lights.

That has not been proven nor shown by anyone and would be rather difficult for an aquarist to show.

So we should, and do...........see both cases working pretty well.
More of an issue of current and flow, O2 etc there with respect to fish health.
Things aquarist arguing in favor of lower CO2 do not curiously, bother to measure

You can force any method or combo you chose, but what works well over time, is another matter.

Some are just going to mess up higher CO2 no matter what you do for them or advice you give them via the web. Help enough folks over the years, you'll find some just will not get it. Aquarist are no different.
Sometimes years later they figure it out.

But that does not solve their immediate problem and as to "why" they have issues.

So they go with whatever works.
Still many do figure it out and it works well for them.
Seeing where the others go wrong is a good place to look. I've learned a lot by other folk's mistakes, as well as my own :idea:

I think it was Robert Hudson's personal tanks when he lived in San Jose that I realized why he had troubles with higher CO2 and BBA (current and low O2).
We were friends back then, so it was awhile ago

BTW slower lower light growth allows the plants to fully develop due to reduced growth rates. you should get nicer development in leaves, and coloration.

I think my main points here is that at lower light, reduced CO2 and nutrients are much easier and easier to manage. But, having higher NO3/PO4/Traces/GH/KH/CO2 are and should be fine as well, same as a higher light tank.

If those work fine in a higher light tank, the same should apply to lower light tanks and give even a larger range of wiggle room. With less lighting, the richer levels should not induce algae obviously.........that's fairly straight forward........and with richer nutrients/CO2 and no issues in higher light tanks, fish should also be fine.

I'm not saying that's better/worse for fish, just that it works for many years and is fine also. The evidence is pretty clear there.
But the ability for folks to do well and have less management issues no matter what is determined by using less light, that's where it all starts, limit light 1st if your goal is reduced growth rates/less pruning/water changes/hassles/algae etc until(or if you want to) you master the higher light routines and achieve those goals.

Regards,
Tom Barr

It has been three weeks now, and the tank still looks great. But, last night I noticed I had some GSA and very thin GDA on the glass. I scraped it all off, added some more phosphate, and today went back to full EI dosing. I also noticed a little bit of BBA starting on a few plant leaves, so I will do the 1.5X dosing of Excel this afternoon. Now I am thinking about whether or not to increase the CO2 to 20-30 ppm - about 3 dKH in the drop checker. If I do that I will have to shut it off at night, and then I am back to the problem of getting the CO2 level up before lights on time each morning.

I'm at 5 weeks with this tank now, and still no problems to speak of. It continues to be the best setup I have ever had, and I'm ready to pronounce my substrate combination a great one!

wow, great looking tank. i hope that one day i'll be able to achieve that kind of beauty. do you otos/sae in there?

There are 3 otos and 3 Yoyo Loaches in it, plus one cory cat. The rest are guppies, a few Endlers, and about 6 "lambchop" rasboras. I added the Endlers when I shut down a nano tank, knowing they would cross breed with the guppies, but I wasn't intending to ever allow one of them to leave my possession, so I didn't care.

Here is the tank after 9 weeks, and it is now a standard EI dosed tank with 30 ppm of CO2 plus Excel. The lower fertilizing and lower CO2 didn't work as well, since I was getting too much algae growing with that. I'm still using Excel to eliiminate what's left of my BBA, trimming away infected leaves as I find them. Right now the tank looks as good as any I have ever had.

Looks great.
How many hours before lights on does your co2 come on, in order to get co2 up to 30ppm?
Mine comes on 2 hrs before and I still dont think it is early enough. Maybe that's just the way it is with my tank.
What method do you use to inject the co2? Diffuser, reactor, venturi?

-Mike B-

I use an external reactor for CO2, and the CO2 comes on 4 hours early. That is most likely too early, but I don't see any fish distress so I settled on that. My goal was to try to get 30 ppm before the lights came on and also reduce CO2 consumption to half of what it would be if run for 24 hours.

That's a great looking tank and it gets better and better looking as it matures.

What is your lighting scheme now?

Bill