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hoppycalif · 10-15-2006, 12:59 PM

It is hard to know what the best ppm of CO2 is, since the numbers people use are all based on measuring pH and KH of the tank water, which is not an accurate method, due to the other things besides CO2 that affect acidity and alkalinity in our tank water. You can choose the ppm of CO2 you want the indicator to be green at, by adjusting the KH of the distilled water in the bulb. I picked 30 ppm believing that to be at least not too much. For that I used KH=4.0 in the bulb. I am thinking about raising the KH to maybe 5 later, to get green at 40 ppm, and if that is still ok, going to KH of 6 to get green at 45 ppm. This would be a way to finally determine what the "best" ppm of CO2 really is.

10-15-2006, 12:59 PM	#8 (permalink)
hoppycalif Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Sacramento, CA, USA Posts: 5,208 iTrader Ratings: 20 iTrader Positive Rating: 100% Plant Points: 227345	It is hard to know what the best ppm of CO2 is, since the numbers people use are all based on measuring pH and KH of the tank water, which is not an accurate method, due to the other things besides CO2 that affect acidity and alkalinity in our tank water. You can choose the ppm of CO2 you want the indicator to be green at, by adjusting the KH of the distilled water in the bulb. I picked 30 ppm believing that to be at least not too much. For that I used KH=4.0 in the bulb. I am thinking about raising the KH to maybe 5 later, to get green at 40 ppm, and if that is still ok, going to KH of 6 to get green at 45 ppm. This would be a way to finally determine what the "best" ppm of CO2 really is.