Scott and Lisa:
It's VERY simple. As far as the CO2 goes it's just the CO2 regulator I used on my ca reactor from aquariumplants.com I think. Any of them would work. I just have a little 5 lb co2 bottle under the stand with airline tubing. I dont have a CO2 "reactor". Here are what those look like if you wanted to go that route. It would probably do a better job than my setup of getting the co2 mixed.
http://www.aquacave.com/searchresult.aspx?CategoryID=77
Like I said I have airline tubing from the regulator. It then goes into the intake of the HOB power filter. It really does a good job of mixing the CO2 and there aren't any issues with this way of doing it. Just depends on how fancy you want to get. If you have an old canister filter I would use and "inline" reactor like
http://www.aquacave.com/co2-reactor-1000-by-aquamedic-3.html
It would keep you from having the HOB filter showing. I inject about one bubble a second.
You could also hook the co2 into a maxijet air intake. Lots of freshwater people do that.
As far as controlling it I have the lights and the regulator plugged into a three outlet thingy that plugs into a timer. Lights and CO2 come on at the same time and shut off at the same time. That way the pH doesn't bottom out at night d/t the co2 (if it was running 24/7). Of course you could also control the co2 with a ph controller, but this was a bargain build and the plants don't mind the ph getting lower than normal anyway. If you were planning on keeping calcium based algaes the ph would make a lot more difference.
I do run a CPR bakpak on this tank even though it kinda seems weird to run a skimmer (taking nutrients out) on a tank that needs lots of nutrients. I tried it with no skimmer and the tank looked kinda dirty to me so I put it back on.
Like I mentioned earlier I use the Plant Fuel Two from FAF. I just add about 1/4 cup per week or so. Really I just dose it when I feel like it.
I also dose Kent Iron occasionally which is great. I usually see a huge amount of growth a few days after dosing the iron.
It's the simplest setup you can imagine and doesn't require much tinkering at all. Leave them alone and let them grow. The cool thing is that with all the nutrients in the tank I have seen some cool filter feeders of all sorts that I have never seen in any of my other tanks and it is crawling with bugs. I would not recommend trying to keep many corals with the co2 and ferts. I have a few softies in there, but I actually killed a finger leather and a purple mushroom which I thought was impossible. I had some yumas in there but took them out because they didn't look happy.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I know you mentioned anglers in an earlier post. You still thinking of adding one?
said:
I doubt I will add either seahorses or anglers. I just dont trust the tank that much with fish with all the ferts and CO2. The two clowns seems fine and there are some starfish and such, but I dont want to risk any lives but adding them to my science project. Maybe eventually, but I just don't feel comfortable with it right now. It seems like for seahorses it would be gas bubble disease waiting to happen.
Angela
