CO2, will it help the non-green fingered

[PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn]

Put very simply, I dont have the greatest luck with plants.Currently my littlle nano tank is doing great, however it has only been theis heavly planted for the last 2-3 weeks.

Now i have a juwel trigon 190 which i have setup for SA fish (in particular rams) but have really struggled due to the poor lighting supplied as standard by juwel. So I'm awaiting delivery from an ebay shop of a 3*24w T5 luminaire. I did try using yeast CO2 however I never once saw any bubbles going through my hagen ladder thing, so i dont believe it worked particularrly well (and i went for a dual 1.5l pop bottle approach)

however i got an email through from trimar, offering a pressurised CO2 kit with a solenoid for £112.99, which is bargin price given the cost of these units otherwise. so I'm seriously considering it. However I'm worried i wont see the benifits of spending all that money.

also, would a soil base work with this method, my nano tank has a layer of soil (John Innes #3) under the sand and seems to be doing well. as i want to keep sand for the rams to dig in (to a limited degree obviously)

the plan if i did go down that root would be to go for an EI approach, (as I wouldnt want to reduce my WC regime (which is allready at 50% weekly))

 

[kilultagh]

As long as you have >=2WPG light and you add ferts, CO2 would help no end. I don't have soil, but use root tabs which works fine for me,

 

[WyldFya]

Read the stickies. I have several that I've stickied up there that will answer many of your questions. The biggest issue with planted tanks, is that you have to find the balance. First, having high light plants under low lighting will kill the plants. Having great lighting, but no nutrients will kill the plants. Having lots of nutrients, but not adequate lighting will fuel algae, and kill higher light plants. What type of filter is on the tank (ex. HOB, canister, sump)? If you have a HOB or sump, pressurized is going to need to be running at a very high level. It will end up wasting quite a bit of the co2.

 

[mgamer20o0]

sounds like light is your limiting factor not carbon.