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An area of confusion for me has been the degassing of CO2 in my aquarium. It's often talked about but we don't seem to have real data except for that done by our friend @Dennis Wong in his article How to measure CO2 levels in an aquarium.

According to this article, standing water sits at .6 ppm of dissolved CO2 and a normal planted aquarium will degass to 2-3 ppm. Therefore, our tanks are never full degassing CO2, especially because we supplement to such a high level. This, in turn, concerned me of an ever increasing CO2 level.

For example, if we started at 2-3 ppm and we went up to 30 ppm on day one, is it possible that on day two you degass only to 3-4 ppm and that is your starting point. Adding the same amount of CO2 would then end up at 31 ppm on day two. This would continue increasing the total high over time.

Curious that I have not created a CO2 disaster in my tanks in the past, I decided to pull up my Apex Fusion log showing my pH drop daily. Here it is:


I was pleasantly surprised to see that my 1.3 - 1.4 pH drop is absolutely consistent day after day. This seems to indicate that I am not on an ever increasing cycle but one that repeats exactly the same day after day.

Does this mean that degassing really isn't an issue to be concerned about or that it's more about oxygenation than decreasing CO2?

In my never ending quest to piddle around, I have been looking at setting up a nano eco tank/bowl with minimum maintenance. The main issue I have is controlling the temp. The temps in my house fluctuate between 68 - 71 degree regularly and can drop to lower 60s a few weeks in the fall and spring when we do not have the heater on.

Has anyone thought about or had success using an animal heating pad under the bowl/tank? While most are designed for reptiles and regulate between 100-120F, there are some for more mixed use that can be controlled from 68F and up. I don't think this would be too hard to set up. Could be to keep the inside of the tank clear of equipment. Radiant floor heating for your shrimp/fish.

Heating Pad

Hello, can anyone running the ARC small acrylic reactor on a 40 breeder tell me what your outlet position is and what ph drop or co2 ppm you are getting?

My new scape. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy finishing my novel. It’s published now so back to scaping.

It’s a classic triangular scape and I’m calling it Quantum Entanglement. It’s a working title, so I might change that. Sorry mods.

The real star is the light. Off Amazon for around $130. Fully controllable with a remote. Great value. https://amzn.eu/d/0eRX5eCo

I want to plant it with mainly buces and small anubias spp. on the rocks and wood and MC carpet, with some crypt nevellii or C. X Willisii, and stauro in the shady parts and maybe a ludwigia mini super red highlight behind the last rock on the left.

I hadn't seen it mentioned by others that attended Aquashella, but if you hadn't already heard about it or seen it in Aquashella videos, ADA has come out with Amazonia Pro. It's not a replacement for Version 2, but an addition. It is essentially Version 2 on steroids with higher nutrients and of course the negative side effect of potentially higher initial ammonia leaching and, if your not prepared and skilled, more chance of algae. That's even from the mouth of Homma-san himself. The scaping competitors were using it in the competition and AFA was selling 9l bags at the show. They said it would be available on the website within the next couple weeks.

I have read an awful lot of warnings and conjectures by people. And “I used bdbs and a shrimp died so I got rid of it…”…

My personal experience with the product has been uneventful.

I have put rare earth magnets through a quart sample with no hint of any attraction and then washed it with no hint of oil slick or dustiness and then added the rest of the bag to a new aquarium with no treatment, no ill effect…

I have probably employed 7 bags by now with no hint of a problem. Dozens of corys sifting through the stuff as well as khuli loaches and yoyo loaches…. No hint of problems with them…

Other than it self leveling itself and being totally incapable of holding a slopeI love the stuff. The black always looks great. It costs about 1/4 aquarium specific substrates. I really haventexperienced anything negative about it…

I know it is popular here…. Has anybody here had bad experiences with it?

Time to start a new thread.

I’ll fill in some details later, but I’m working on the hardscape now. Any and all criticism is appreciated. The vision is nothing more, and nothing less, than something appealing to the eye.

90cm x 30cm x 30cm Lifegard Aquatics ultra clear bookshelf tank. Buce and anubias on the hardscape, stems towards the back and center, mid to front carpet with some changes in shade and texture down to a flat grade on the right side of the tank.

Lily pipe inlet and skimmer will be in the back left corner with the outflow in the front left to hopefully achieve circular flow. I’ll be running an in-line diffuser. Light will be the P600 Pro that I regrettably did not upside to 900. Oh well. I’ll mount it high and hopefully it’ll have enough spread.

I have some dragon stone and red lava rock rubble I’ll use at the base to blend into the substrate, as well as some stratum I may or may not cap with.

As some people may know I had a long running journal on another forum. Glad to see Art get this new site started. A fresh beginning and loads of possibilities ahead. I'll be updating with thoughts here but for today just wanted to share my latest tank pics.

Like my no-tech bowl scaping thread where I have a list of inspiring bowl scapers, I thought it would be awesome to do the same with a Dutch-inspired / True Dutch thread! I have a ton, but I'll post them over time. If anyone else finds good examples of dutch tanks, post them here, too!

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First up:



I translated the transcript and got as much info as I could. Here's the things I find interesting:

50% WC weekly

He front-load doses the incoming fresh water volume to:

• NO3: ~30 ppm
• PO4: ~4.2 ppm
• K: ~34 ppm
• Mg: ~3.4 ppm

Meaning, his accumulation numbers can never exceed these values (that's the benefit of viewing his front load in terms of incoming ppm values vs total water volume).

If you were to look at it through full-volume dosing lens, it's:

• NO3: ~15 ppm
• PO4: ~2.1 ppm
• K: ~17 ppm
• Mg: ~1.7 ppm

GH booster is used but not described, so IDK how much Ca/Mg he uses.

Micros are dosed 3x per week, but nothing specific provided. Probably ~0.3-0.5ppm/week? He does say the iron is all gone/undetectable by the evening.

Beautiful tank! I love the balance of colors, textures, and plant groupings. That tiger lily is amazing. Very little algae, too!

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @tṛtīyāya!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?