My internal CO2 reactor has been putting out a nice fine mist of bubbles in my 55 gallon, then I have another power-head at the opposite end of the tank to keep a slow race track flow trying to disperse the bubbles.

I now have a Drop Checker with 4dkh solution, showing a nice green.

As you may know I had a bad outbreak of Black Algae, still have some Sword plants that have the more stubborn black stuff on the edges of the leaves.
The CO2 bubbles have been sticking to some of these areas on the leaves. I have been able to just scrape the black algae off, which appears to have died.
This is only in the areas where the bubbles have been sticking.

This leaves me with a question, Is the CO2 mist killing the Algae or could the algae have already been dead and the bubbles just happen to be there.

I'm doing some more experimenting with this one.

BBA is black when it is alive, but red and white when it is dying or dead. The black algae on the leaf edges is, I think, BBA. So, I don't think it is dying from the CO2. Excel will kill it very well when dosed at 1.5 - 2X the recommended on the bottle dosages.

When I tried CO2 mist I found I had great pearling and plant growth, but BBA persisted unless I mechanically got rid of it and made sure the dissolved CO2 stayed up around 30 ppm. Like other algae BBA loves CO2. It just doesn't start its growth cycle if the CO2 level is persistently around 30 ppm day after day.

The black algae I scraped off seemed to have lost it's hold on the leaf which is very unusual for this stuff. Probably just a coincidence and had already died out but it was still black.
I put some Rotala Rotund in the tank yesterday. It must have grown an inch today, amazing growth!
With the good CO2 levels I finally have the EI dosing is the only way to go.
Thanks

Namely fromn stable CO2 levels, BBA loses it's drive and slowly dies off.
CO2 itself does not, howeverm , kill BBA.

But CO2 kist sure can help plants grow much better in virtually all cases.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Stability is a key element to pretty much all fascets of aquatic gardening, this is also where EI has an edge, but I suspect that Co2 misting tends to accelerate or "augment" Photosynthesis in closed system enviroments. Dissolved Co2 is all well and good, but atmospheric Co2 tends to lubricate the process considerably. Plants have a clear advantage over algae in the right venue. Misting may not occur naturally, not often any way, but we often take advantage of biological phenomenon in this hobby. If it levels the Algae playing field a little I say go for it ! 10,000% availability is quite an edge and higher plants evolved to take full advantage of that.

Well, do not get too exicted, we are already pushing growth at 10-20X the normal rates.

There's only so much, so fast a plant can metabolically grow before time factors into limiting the rates.

At 30ppm dissoloved CO2, you are near maxmimal rates, so adding this might get another 20% more growth, not 10,000X more.

It takes time for the plant to organize all these components into tisuue.
Lots of very complex parts need assembled.
The plants are quite fast and good at it, but they do have limits.

If you drive some parts too fast and the plant can regulate or down regulate things or upregulate, etc..then you run into trouble.

When you try and maintain high light + high CO2 + non limiting nutrients, things can and do get away from you.

So reduce the ligh and that reduces the speed of growth and the energy added at the root core of plant growth: photosynthesis.

Same with algae.

So less intense growth is easily manged and a very stable way using light.

More than any other single parameter, light tends to be our most easily controlled and stable tool we have.

CO2 is about the most unstable.

So...........

More light= more CO2 related issues and less stablility and resiliency etc.

We do not even have to get to/discuss nutrients to see this issue occurring.

Regards,
Tom Barr

"When you try and maintain high light + high CO2 + non limiting nutrients, things can and do get away from you."

This statement lays the groundwork for a very good discussion !

We can only strive to create optimal conditions, but at what point have we actually exceeded any reasonable expectation ?

You Tom Barr are a Co2 nag. More Co2 ! Stable Co2 !! Better quality Co2 !!!

Myself I'm more of a Light nag. More light ! Too much light !! Better Light !!!

EI in itself almost always maintains stable nutrition. The only real problems ever encountered can and do occur only when we cross the boudaries of reasonable expectation, or allow hygein to lapse within the system.

I believe it's Flora's Bye line that the only things that happen quickly in this hobby are generally bad. Given the technology available to Aquatic Gardeners today the hobbiest is relegated to a postion somewhere in between Benevolent God, and Ardent Custodian. In the process of pushing the envelope We are all ultimately responsible for the results achieved. Whether people lose sight of rational boundaries, or overlook the finer details I personally believe nutrition might be the "Easiest" aspect to maintain. Some folks just make a chore out of it...

Co2 misting is only a tool or method to tickle or goose photosynthesis within a closed system enviroment. Or perhaps to augment or supplement enrichment when a large system has reached a plateau or been taxed to a breaking point. Grtz, Prof M

I guess the areas of BBA I was able to scrape off had died, still a few spots hanging in there.
Tom, I just finished your article on BBA, It's a great read! I can see where I had low CO2 in my tank, with out a drop checker there was no way for me to know. When I started using the Neutral Regulator the inevitable happened.
EI + 30ppm Co2 + 5watts/gal light is like driving a high performance race car, one small mistake and things can go wrong very fast!
I noticed a new problem developing, thats blue green Cyanobacteria is in my 55 now. I read where this is caused my low NO3 which seems odd, unless the plants are starving the Cyanobacteria. I suspect it is mainly caused by to much light so I am cutting back once again. I also wonder if this has something to do with losing several Ottocinculus catfish.
What is this best treatment of Cyanobacteria?
A 3 day black-out may be my best bet, hate to do that just yet. I'm not sure how my Discus would take it.
Thanks

Regarding the CO2 mist advantage over purely dissolved CO2... I have noticed this in my tank during the latest week.

I initially set up things in a way that CO2 bubbles went straight to the canister inlet tube. That certainly dissolved all CO2 and I could track that by measuring PH and KH. Plants also pearled regularly.

But then I switched to a CO2 difuser and the result is visually noticeable. Plants started pearling with "big" bubbles sticked to their leaves. Something that didn't ever happened with pure dissolved CO2.

This was even injecting less bubbles per second.

And it seems to me that it is not a matter of having CO2 lost somehow when I was injecting bubbles into the canister inlet, because again, I see that the PH is a little higher now with the mist from the difuser and less bubbles per second.

Regards,
Evandro.

discusman54, i am a newbie to this site, but not the hobby in general, and I was instructed by this site to do a three day blackout to get rid of a lot of algae I was having problems with. I have 4 discus, and they are fine now, but they were very irritated with me, once the blackout was over. As instructed, I was to do a water change before and after the blackout, and the "after" part was the toughest part. I ended up more or less just changing the water....not really vacuuming anything.

They were extremely shy with me, and "skitting" all over the tank once I tried to turn the lights back on, after everything was unwrapped.....then I was supposed to do a water change! Perhaps you will have better luck then I did, and maybe your fish are happier with you and your care for them, then mine are with me...who knows

Anyways...my only suggestion is when you unwrap everything after the blackout, turn lights on slowly, and try to get them re-accustomed to things before trying to get in there and do a water change......like open blinds a lil bit....feed them, open blinds a lil more...wait a while, maybe turn on one light on the tank...stuff like that

I felt like I was starting over with them....and going back to the "shyness" from when they were "new"

I also lost a cardinal tetra in the process! haha....we all know discus like to eat lots! Those are the only issues I noticed when doing my blackout last week

Works great for the algae issues tho....good luck!
Eric