What's the right drop checker green?

[Schrute66]

I'm completely useless at interpreting subtle color differences on a chart. Am I in the ballpark here for the right green in my drop checker? This was taken a few hours after hitting about a 1.1 pH drop.

 

[Pepere]

I just rely on ph drop to determine correct injection amount…

And since I changed from diffusers to horizontal reactors, And confirming by ph drop that my reactor was the right size I just make sure I get some overflow gas out my outlet from time to time.

Mostly I just use the drop checker as a quick visual reference that there is co2 in the aquarium now…

 

[Schrute66]

Understood. Thx. Just looking for correlation.

 

[Pepere]

Drop checker peak color change occurs about 2 hours after peak ph drop.
I get about a 1.5 ph drop and the drop checker gets a yellow green.

 

[Schrute66]

Got it Thanks again.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Adding my 0.02, if your DC is lime green/yellow, that's OK (and can even be good) as long as you have tons of surface agitation/oxygen to supply O2 (which is independent of CO2).
My tanks sit at about 40ppm injection and get yellow-ish DCs.

Also also, don't forget to start your CO2 injection early enough! I start early enough that my DC is forest green when the lights come on, and lime green 1-2 hours after that. If your DC only turns lime/yellow in the afternoon/evening, you aren't starting CO2 injection early enough.

 

[Sb1415]

How to measure CO2 levels in an aquarium

Too much CO2 or too little CO2 in your planted aquarium? How else to achieve optimal CO2 levels in your planted tank? Why drop checkers do not always do a good job. This page explores all these issues and more.

www.2hraquarist.com

I use the Hannah co2 kit to measure co2 it is not too expensive. I found that there were too many variations of green in the drop checker method. Haven’t done the ph method yet but will likely start that at some point as well.