gotcheaprice

I'm sure wheeler has a decent argument behind him, but he comes off as waaaayyy to aggressive. He also believes Amano is a god o_o

He's one of those uptight people who don't do stuff for fun, but for self improvement, as he said so himself. IMO, if I water changed constantly, not for myself, it wouldn't be fun. If it was for me, I'd have fun, since I just like taking care of animals in general(though my mom hates another other animals!).

And woo, year old topic

longhornxtreme

I always wonder if Amano has taken the allelochemical approach (to reduce algae) combined with nutritious soil that maintains macro equilibrium with water at very low mg/L concentrations.

I FULLY understand the benefit of it leeching ammonia in the beginning, it lets you start a brand new tank outright and get it cycling, while provide the best nitrogen source for your new scape.

What we need is someone to send a chem grad student, with access to a GC/MS machine, samples of the ADA fert line, so we can understand if it's more the ferts or more the soil.

Squawkbert

Didn't read all, but here's my initial reaction to the OP & questions about what constitutes "a little" higher/lower etc.

1) Method mentioned assumes that a solenoid is in use or that tank is heavily planted enough that O2 from plant respiration will displace CO2 in the water column.

2) Change in pH due to a fixed amount of CO2 being in the water will be a function of the water's buffering capacity. If GH is high, expect a modest to trivial change in pH. If GH is low, you *might* see a difference in pH (depending on KH level). This explains the lack of answers as to what "a little" is.

3) If you're adding CO2 during the photoperiod and pH actually goes up, your combination of gas exchange (due to surface agitation) and plant usage *is* exceeding the amount of CO2 you're adding (or something else happened to introduce something basic to the water).

IMHO - a drop checker is a better way to do it.