Converting a tank to non co2…

[Pepere]

I am thinking of withdrawing co2 from one of my tanks.

It is a 20 high a few inches above floor level. I set it up mostly for my grandsons to enjoy when playing on the floor. It is all easy plants, and Ihave Glow Skirt Tetras for them and some cories. And I have 2 Paw Patrol resin figures in the tank…

Water changes are a pain at floor level, and pruning and replanting stems even more so on my hands and knees…

So, the question.. how best convert, taper off or cold turkey? I am already at lower co2 levels, maybe a 3/4 ph drop.

At some point in the future when I have more time I can see doing a complete rescape eliminating stems and going with all slow growing plants…

 

[RickyV]

Not an expert on this, but on my tank I just did cold turkey. Not much changed other than reduced growth rate. I did cut fertilization down because of that.

 

[*Ci*]

I did exactly this on both of my tanks. On the first one, I was getting tired and frustrated with the amount of trimming and replanting needed to get the stems to look good, so I did a complete turn around in one day of turning off the co2, lowering the light intensity, replacing the ADA aquasoil with inert and only keeping the low maintenance, low light plants, that were in there. Fish, plants and tank all survived and thrived.
On the other, I started out with only low tech plants with low co2 rates, when one day I noticed that the tank had run out at some point. I never got it filled and never saw any difference in the plants or any new algae growth.

 

[Art]

On the other, I started out with only low tech plants with low co2 rates, when one day I noticed that the tank had run out at some point. I never got it filled and never saw any difference in the plants or any new algae growth.

This is really enticing to me now.