CO2 application
On Friday 2/12 I was coming home from Rožnov pod Radhoštěm via Veselí nad Moravou. There is an aquarist store called Dr. Šponar where we used to go sometimes around the year 1993. After more than 20 years I decided to visit it again.
I wanted to buy Serpae tetras (Hyphessobrycon eques) but they had only three of them. So, I didn’t buy them. I also wanted to buy two couples of Electric blue ram cichlids (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi electric blue). Unfortunately, they had only three fish, so I took two males and one female. I took the other female of the common Ram cichlid (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi). I also bought a small veil Angelfish (smokey) and one Corydora panda.
At the opportunity, I bought some equipment for the CO2 generation: 4 m of tube, T-connectors, valves and a check valve. I also bought frozen blood worms fish food.
At home, I put the fish into the aquarium. At the same time, I filled the old aquarium with water to let it sit until the following day. It was necessary to change a part of the water in the aquarium.
On Saturday, I started with the water change. I used the Marina Easy Clean gravel cleaner for the first time. It is easy to use and effective. Some brown algae appeared on the front glass. It is usual in new aquariums. I used the wash-up sponge to clean it. The algae growing on the plants were under control thanks to the Siamese algae eater (Crossocheilus siamensis) that are very powerful in this case.
I cleaned the filter and filled water in the aquarium. I added a dose of the Bactoesex again to support the bacteria creation. I added liquid CO2 as well.
As the liquid CO2 was not sufficient for the plants growth, it was necessary to resolve the CO2 generation. I had already bought the set of Biokvas by Rataj. I created a gas separator from a little PET bottle which I filled with water. I connected the output of the CO2 generating bottle to this little bottle and from here to the sand stone in the aquarium. I connected the T-connector and valves in between the aquarium and the little bottle to be able to close the tube to the aquarium at night and let the CO2 go out. I also connected the check valve before the aquarium.
The Biokvas bottle already contained culture medium. I filled it with warm water according to the manual and put bacteriaand activator in. Nothing happened for long time. After two days, on Monday some bubbles started to come out. Approx. one per minute. It seemed to me very weak. So, I tried my own solution. I took a 1.5-liter PET bottle and filled it with a liter of warm water. I put 200 g of sugar in and stirred it. I added a pack of 7 g of yeast and stirred it. After half an hour, the fermentation process began. I used the Biokvas bottle’s lid (with the tube) to close the PET bottle. I connected it to the aquarium. It was necessary to control it with the valve a bit because the bubbles were coming out very fast. The Rataj’s Biokvas failed, but my solution does work.
