What's up fishtank people. Fishtanktv.com, dustinsfishtanks stevesfishtanks bringing
it from Steve's house over here. Dude calls me up, I am sitting there still working dressed
in a suit and tie wrap cleaning in a bar soap coming at you on a fired up Friday just got
done eating some lunch with my man. He is like doing how to a video and I am like absolutely!
Absolutely do we have to do a video! Steve want to talk about this? Tanks don't always
look great, I am going to take the camera, I want to get Steve on camera and I want to
talk about what we are doing with some CO2 in the mix. Talk what is going on here! Listen
the man is willing to do a video with his tank not looking great, which by the way props
to you for just keeping it real.
S: Work has been rough recently. Stuff has happened.
Dude has got a baby on the way. Hardcore working, talk about it brother: What do you got?
S: Let's talk about CO2. This is a twenty pounds of Co2. Why is it wrapped in a thrash
bag? Well because where I changed it in they gave me a rusty tank. I don't want to get
rust all over my house. Anyway it is a good tank. It's going to go under the stand when
I am done.
D: How the hell is that going to fit under the stand?
S: It does actually. I will just lay it sideways. It works great! How did you get started in
Co2? This was one of the most intimidating things for a planted tank. The first thing
you got to do is you got to start with the tank. We either go to your local gas supplier
store, buy a tank and then every time the tank gets empty you just trade it in and out.
Basically like you do for a propane gas grill or you buy a used tank on Craigslist, or eBay.
I recommend starting with a five pound tank. This is a twenty pound tank! You probably
just need to start out with a much smaller, that will last like a year or longer. Twenty
pound tank- fill it at your local gas store, buy the tank, buy used, cheap whatever! They
will just switch in one and switch out the other.
D: That's the easy part, getting a tank. What about...?
S: The next part is reeling the solenoid right here. Basically it's your CO2 regularity.
D: What brand is this brother?
S: This is an Aso-one, Aso CO2 regulator. How this works? There is a plug coming in
right here that I have plugged into the outlet. When that is plugged in it allows gas to scan.
D: So when power is on that let's gas out?
S: Exactly! These show you that you have pressure going out and this nob actually regulates
the speed. So I just twist this knob a little either direction and it controls the speed.
Here's a whole lot. I can even shut it down.
D: What are going for here?
S: How fast you want to run this? Usually one or two bubbles a second is a very safe
way to go. You can get a bubble counter in the tank like I have, where you can actually
count the bubbles.
D: That is just a ladder though, right?
S: That is just a ladder, but you can still use it to count bubbles. How many bubbles
are coming up every second. You get like a watch, do a minute and count the bubbles.
How many bubbles per minute or bubbles per ten seconds and figure out your bubbles per
second. What I recommend is to have your timer plugged in the same time your light is on,
so that the CO2 shuts off when your light shuts off because plants need CO2 to grow.
Carbon is the basis of everything that is living. We get our carbon through our food.
Plants get it through CO2. So the plants are going to get the carbon, they are going to
use that carbon to grow as fast as possible, they are going to suck all the nutrients out
of the tank and they are going to out compete the algy. The reason that I have some algae,
this tank has not had CO2 running for three months now. That looks terrible!
D: You are a man to show it like that! Real man show their tank when it doesn't look perfect!
That's all I can say.
S: Everything has its ups and downs. You lose a little motivation and then you get it back.
D: I had to be Debbie Donner, but let's just talk about what happens when the CO2 stops.
Some of gotches man, because I got a lot of beginners, a lot of people getting into it.
Obviously CO2 is a killer when you got it rolling, lost some of the Blyxa
S: As soon as the CO2 stop, my Blyxa died out. I got one little tiny strain trying to
hang on.
D: You got that. The algae came back when the CO2 went. Have you ever gashed your fish?
S: I have never done it so much that I have killed fish to my knowledge.
D: I came downstairs when I was messing around with the regulator on mine and I had my rainbows
all at the top of the tank gasping me. That was scary shit. I was like "Oh my god, I am
about to kill all my Boesemani", so I quickly throttled back the CO2, which by the way I
don't have CO2 running on my 220 right now. Let that be abundantly clear. No C02 on my
220, I would like to mess with it, but I am not running it right now.
S: It's not absolutely needed for a good tank, but it sure does help.
D: Let us talk about it though, because you had plants like the Rotella was fine without
the CO2. I mean it is still okay. Would you grow dwarf hairgrass because I am a hater
of that plant. Would you grow without CO2?
S: No, never!
D: Listen to that folks. No CO2, no dwarf hairgrass. Everybody asked me about dwarf
hairgrass, like once a day I get a question about it. I don't like it! It's a hard plant
to keep! That's important. So you run it, alternating your lights, talk about the pH
drop, because it does drop the pH in the tank.
S: The CO2 is going to switch over into acid. Not all of it is going to get absorbed to
the plant. I believe it's called carbonic acid from my vague memory of chemistry, but
I might be wrong. Part of it does switch over to acid that lowers the pH in the tank. That's
one reason you can kill fish with CO2. If you overdose, and that's another reason you
don't want to have the CO2 going when the lights are going. That's why you put them
on the same timer, so they stop at the same time. That and the plants aren't going to
be using it at night. The other issue is you can replace all of the oxygen in the tank
with CO2 and that can also kill your fish. So there is two reasons that CO2 can kill
your fish. So you don't want to overdo it. Couple bubbles a second is usually good.
D: One bubble?
S: It depends on the size of the tank. A bigger tank needs more CO2. You can research that.
The internet has a lot of guidelines on how many bubbles per second. Look it up, we will
try to give you some information later.
D: Type in CO2 and then Tom Barr, if you want to know.
S: This is a bubble ladder. These are a good way to do it...
D: Coming soon on aquaticjungles.com!
S:...the longer the bubbles spin going back and forth, I guess Dustin showed you the shot
of it going back and forth, the more that it is actually going to get absorbed into
the water. That's why they go back and forth. Takes more time to go up to the surface, so
it absorbs more. The other type is a defuser. This is a defuser right here. The tube hooks
onto this and it comes through in and actually this is a really fun, I think it is porcelain
actually, top and these little micro bubbles will come out here and they will almost completely
get absorbed into the water. The problem with this is that there's no bubble counter on
this, so you actually have to get a bubble counter on your CO2 regulator down there.
Really high end CO2 regulators will have a bubble counter attached. It is very useful!
So if you want to go that way, that is never the wrong way to go.
D: Any starting off tips, go with one bubble per second, use a ladder, you know? What about
water changes, and pH swings and that kind of thing?
S: During a really large water change, when you are doing CO2 your tap water is going
to be a little different pH. Probably most will be about a pHof 7.
D: That varies all over the country.
S: It varies all over the country, but let's just say it is, and let's say your tank is
at a pH of 5.5 because you are running CO2. These kids don't mind a pH of 5.5 neither
do Cardinal tetras. Well the thing is, if you do a huge fifty percent water change you
are going to drastically change the pH. My advice is I would never do more than a 25%
water change, if you are not going to mess with the pH of the water you are putting.
D: What happens when you do big changes in pH swings?
S: You kill fish!
D: We have all killed fish! Don't act like anybody watching this is not killed fish.
We have all killed some fish. Very good stuff dude! Thank you so much for having me over,
and chilling and going it. There are what, five Discus in here that are just hiding,
because Discus are the hot chick at the bar that you can't talk to, that's got her head
up her ass and you are just: "We are Discus, we are going to hide. We don't want to be
on camera".
S: We scared them!
D: That's what we are doing. Grab me real quick if you could. So we are having a lot
of fun, Steve busting the CO2 video, I have got the dirted tank bundle for sale on howtosetupaplantedtank.com
on Christmas special, until Christmas so Ho-Ho-Ho get some dirt in your stocking folks. I am
also doing another live Q&A. Some of you got an e-mail about that on Tuesday at 1:00 PM
Eastern Standard Time. I am very jacked about that! It will be live, answering questions,
talking tanks for ninety minutes, so that is something you are definitely going to want
to check out. I hope you guys had an awesome week. I am having a good time. Steve grabbed
me to do this. What are your plans next bro? What are you doing next? You got your CO2
going...
S: I guess I need to buy some new plants.
D: What are you going to do now Bro? I mean you got access to me.
S: I need more Rotella in the back...
D: More Rotella?! Steve if you had one planted tank with you to the grave it would be Rotella.
S: It's a great plant!
D: I mentioned in the dirted tank guide by the way. I give like a full Rotala love in
there. I am all about your love for Rotella Indica.
S: I am going to start dosing some Iron and some Potassium in here, so I can get the color
up on my Rotella.
D: How are you liking that potassium I gave you?
S: It's going to be a lot better, now that I got CO2, I got the lights on more out in
the day.
D: What do you guys think Steve should do in here? I don't know dude.I think you are
still dirted. You want to do more Rotala? You want to do any big Swords? To hit at those
flames I got. They went pow in there with the CO2. If you are good to get CO2 on there,
you texted me yesterday when you had the CO2 running. That's it folks!
S: One other thing, when you are connecting the valve here sometimes you have to use plumbers
tape to get a good connection. We just learned that today.
D: Yes, we had to go to Home Depot to get that done so, Tank on people!