Does Liquid CO2 Work In Planted Aquariums?

CO2 is often looked into for a boost to help planted aquariums grow and fight algae. There are many liquid carbon products on the market, but do they actually work?
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[@shaneh1271]

Just discovered you. You’re awesome and knowledgeable and you explain things very clearly! Thank u! You have a new sub

[@BTQ410]

Great video! I wish these manufacturers would explain these things on their products. Your channel is the best freshwater aquarium channel out there. You not only explain the what, but you also explain the how and why. Love, love your channel. Also, I find so many people in this hobby are out for the quick fix or some fix in a bottle instead of taking the time to understand their issue and address the underlying cause. One of my biggest pet peeves is the instant fix to get rid of algae. They want someone to tell them go buy product x and it will cure whatever their algae problem is in their tank. Why can’t people put in the effort to figure out why they have, for example, an algae bloom in their water to begin with? I just had a discussion with someone on a forum who had used a UV light to “solve their green water” issues. They hadn’t really solved their algae issue, but had only killed the algae in their water. They never understood why they had green water in the first place. What makes it even worse is they then became the expert on fixing green water and began recommending to everyone they go buy a UV light to solve green water. They do the same thing with Excel and 3% Hydrogen Peroxide too. No one seems to want to put in the time and effort to understand their problem and actually fix the problem. Your explanation and your education of what Excel really is and what it does is great because you explain the risk associated with using this product.

[@dennisobrien2600]

Never used excell till recently. I had a pretty annoying beard algae issue. I treated my tank for a month with the daily dose than slowly backdown to non. It definitely helped in my tank but like you do I will only use it when I it gets bad. Seemed affective and plants and fish did good crypts seemed to pause growth during usage though. Great video as always ❤

[@TexKP]

This is the most logical explanation I have heard of this product. Thank you!

[@sueharkey2820]

Well explained!

[@brianholdridge1860]

Thanks Bentley for the heads up.

[@hectorlara1864]

This is a good video, yeup, "liquid CO2" is essentially a crutch, and is not needed if you deliver plants all the nutrients they need in the appropriate amount along with the proper lighting. Good job Bentley!

[@All_Things_Fish]

Nice, quick and informative talk!

[@shelbytaylor4634]

Thank youuuu! Am having trouble with a 55G shrimp tank and am searching for answers on dosing. This helped.

[@trenamarie9820]

Thanks for this simple explanation of Excel, now I finally understand fully. I only dose excel once a week which has help with hair algae issues. I may start decreasing the amounts I use weekly since now i know how it really works.

[@angiebear8727]

I use it the same way. Had a bad hair algae outbreak. Now that it’s more under control I’ll cut down and eventually stop. Have used this method before along with extra water changes ect to combat algae from overtaking my aquariums. Works well but best used sparingly.😊

[@DavidTucker85]

After watching your 2 year old video on flourish and this, I'm going to change my fertilizing practices

[@AshtonStudios]

Love the advice Pascoenator!

[@stoneysscapes7544]

Hey Bentley hope all is well with you and your family and congratulations on the new chapter. I was just wondering if you have any idea who came up with the idea for this, and was Seachem the 1st to essentially try to bamboozle the people. 😅

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@stoneysscapes7544 I'm not precisely sure on the historical side of how this came into the hobby. I might be a good question for Alex over at Fishtory

[@AquariumFun-sy2jt]

Great video! Thanks!

[@UK88272]

Hydrophila corymbosa or siamensis 53b is sensitive to excel also.. direct dosing causes leaves to warp, the plant will shed alot of leaves ! It's good stuff to get on top of a bad algae outbreak but not for long term use, always address the cause as Bentley says

[@MDBD2405]

What a pain got those plants in tank and was going to use Seachem excel does it kill the plant.

[@UK88272]

@MDBD2405 no it doesnt kill it, just dont overdo it, dose once as per bottle instructions, then wait atleast 3 days before going again. It will shed some leaves, especially the 1s with algae on.

[@MDBD2405]

@@UK88272 thank you for the advice.

[@cristiansofake7854]

Not even 10 seconds ago I searched c02 drop checkers here on yt and then i get a notification for this

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@cristiansofake7854 it was supposed to be out earlier but I messed up the schedule 🤣

[@markrobinson75]

@BentleyPascoe I used to just use Excel for spot treatments like you. Then I saw a post somewhere where the guy used it in large amounts to stem algae growth. I have to use a high light setting to get the right par setting at the substrate so balance parameters were hard to achieve. Now I dose 20 ml of Excel 'almost' every day and it works wonders for me.....allround.

[@carolingram5948]

Great info!

[@FrugalFishkeeping]

I use Excel in my dry ferts mix to prevent fungal growth and it's very effective.

[@MDBD2405]

What plants have you got in the tank behind you very nice.

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@MDBD2405 running river (my left) is mostly needle lead java fern. Fallen Forest on my right has several crypts, Anubias and buce

[@MDBD2405]

@@BentleyPascoe both tanks look great do you run any co2 in tanks.

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@MDBD2405 fallen Forest runs about 3 bubbles per second. Running river had some in the past, but not currently

[@MDBD2405]

@@BentleyPascoe thanks for reply, just started watching your videos very good useful information.

[@capitalcityaqatics]

Great video.

[@thomascrohan7810]

Is it true you can also use hydrogen peroxide to kill off algae as well?

[@BentleyPascoe]

Yes you can, though you need to be careful about how you use hydrogen peroxide in aquariums

[@thomascrohan7810]

@@BentleyPascoe thanks Bentley!

[@duncanedwards6158]

great thanks

[@williamleidy6713]

I have healthy water and fish, but I am in a constant fight with alge. Using this chemical is a risk / reward situation I am unsure about. Alge feeds my snails and Otto catfish. Chemical destruction of all of it could have a negative impact. Decisions / collisions

[@WHlSKYx]

I’m having BBA and some staghorn issue. Mostly BBA, and using excel daily hasn’t done anything, neither was H202 3%. I did do a dilute dip and it killed some of it, not all of it… it’s coming back again and I don’t get why. It’s mostly on the front slow plants and wood, some on the intake sponge. My flow is meh, I have a 20 long with a 307 but lower flow I have forktails and HG. Flow is circulating, maybe go to a spray and intake on same side rather than original outflow? And intake same side? I dose leaf zone weekly and light on 50-60% (medium-high considered) I even reset the entire tank after dip and it’s coming back. Never had this problem before. Any tips?

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@WHlSKYx I think the spray bar is a good idea, get more uniform water movement to help fight the staghorn

[@LakeMissoulaAquaticsandPlants]

Established blue velvet shrimp colony for 2 years, started using liquid carbon. After 4 months my shrimplets started coming out red, orange, yellow and green. Stopped using liquid carbon culled neurotically for 6 months now back to a solid blue line. Somehow that stuff seems to generally modify biology.

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@LakeMissoulaAquaticsandPlants whoa, never heard of that happening before, what a nightmare

[@LakeMissoulaAquaticsandPlants]

On the positive side, I got some deep burgundy, almost purple shrimp I am trying to line out and got some bloody merry shrimp out of it too. The green, yellow and orange turned brown.

[@Karp_Keeper]

Works for me as an algaecide to get rid of that stubborn BBA

[@irecruitfish7410]

I've given up on live plants I'm just going with plastic. Somehow duckweed and frog bit and also my anubias are all dying but my pthos is doing well

[@MrTomro]

imo liquid co2 is one of the biggest scams in the aquarium hobby

[@michaelv1984]

Exactly. No such thing. And excel is so bad for delicate plants like certain moss species. I’ve used it in the past for some algae. Idk why people try so hard to complicate a simple thing and avoid injected co2 at all costs. The only instance I can see if money is an issue, but in that case you have yeast and sugar and citric acid and baking soda so no argument there. A few empty soda bottles. You can get a 2 liter stainless steel reactor for $52 with solenoid and all on Ali and Costco sells 13.5 lbs baking soda for $8.99, and can get citric acid from $5-$3 per pound depending on volume purchased. Dirt cheap. I use proper co2, but I calculated how much it would cost to fill a 2 liter generator at these costs and it was something like $1.44, not as cheap as proper pressurized liquid co2, but still very cheap and you avoid the upfront cost of pressurized co2. For reference I own all my co2 cylinders (5lb, and 2x 10lb) it cost me $15 to fill the 5lb and $18 to fill my 10lb. I can get nearly a year out of an 10 lb on 30-40 gallons worth of scapes. And the bigger the cylinder the cheaper to fill so 20lb and so on the price per pound goes down significantly. All my cylinders are beautiful brushed aluminum and I’ve had them a long long time. I just got my 5 year retest done on two of them. It was $40 each and it came with a filling so like $20 every 5 years to test. If you don’t own and you swap then you don’t need to worry about retests. I also still have all my regulators from my very first one and they all still work perfectly fine. The most I’ve had to do was repair a leak on one and it was simple. I’ve never run a scape without co2 and don’t ever plan to. IMO the benefits are just too great. I love my high tech aquascspes. Shit I inject in 2 gallons and even a tiny 1.7 gallon pond because why not

[@GregWilliams-e5w]

I use algae eaters to control algae for the most part, with a bad algae problem I will use a chemical solution as well as the algae eaters.

[@madd5]

You mean I spent 5 bucks for nothing!! LOL Thanks for the video. I'll throw that garbage away. I got the Tetra CO2 Plus btw.

[@darkstars-torpedoes-of-truth]

Will carbon paper work? 🙃

[@wcdeich4]

Wish I could find a white slime biocide.

[@nabokovfan87]

The most difficult thing is something like the CO2 tabs (sera) or other things that actually claim to be CO2. In theory, atmospheric air should be enough for any plant demands. If I churn the water surface like a river, you would think that would be enough to have CO2 available. It's such a complex issue that I've never been able to really fix apart from having better circulation as opposed to dosing a ton of CO2 or a ton of surface agitation.

[@samscalz]

Not a huge fan of liquid Carbon supplements except for battling hair and black beard algae.

[@AliCat876]

Aquarium co-op no longer sells easy carbon Bentley. I don't use liquid carbon or CO2 in my low tech tank.

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@AliCat876 interesting! Good to know, I used to recommend it a lot for spot treating

[@lifewithnikka7440]

​@@BentleyPascoeThe Coop has no intentions of taking Easy Carbon off the shelf permanently. According to Cory in one of his live streams, laws have been changed with regards to the product somehow. I can't remember the details, but do remember him talking about it. Basically, he's waiting for the bureaucrats to sort things on their end so he knows how to proceed with regards to the product and labeling.

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@lifewithnikka7440 appreciate the extra details!

[@CatFish107]

I'm almost certain gluteraldehyde kills java moss too. Awful stuff.

[@Karp_Keeper]

Yeah, it's very strong stuff so don't use it around sensitive plants

[@כייף_עם_מאיה]

So basically according to your research liquid carbon does NOT providing additional CO2 to the aquarium..

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@כייף_עם_מאיה correct.

[@arthurhague4205]

Oops , he uses it!

[@AndrewCharon]

I feel like we’ve already visited this topic

[@stoneysscapes7544]

Your comment is correct and I'm certain that the video was intended for the ones who aren't certain of what Liquid CO2 is for , but it's totally worth hitting the Like 🎅🏻

[@the186element9]

Liked # 200 / Algorithm

[@BentleyPascoe]

@@the186element9 the algorithm appreciates you

[@TCS_Aquatics]

I heard Father Fish say that CO2 from a dirted deep substrate tank works better than any kind of injection, and I have to say my two tanks that have that setup are FLOURISHING….

[@dtw1622]

i would hesitate to say its “better” but glad it’s working so well with you. Definitely something I want to try. What types of plants are you growing?

[@TCS_Aquatics]

@@dtw1622 Let me see if I can spot them all, hornwort, several species of Echinodorus, red Ludwigia, Bacopa, Amazon frogbit, rotala indica, and of all things what’s flourishing is Cabomba caroliniana. You should totally try it, I’m not saying I’m doing the total Walstad method tank, I do have heaters and filtration. But the naturals thing is really working for me.

[@BassManStrikes]

Ya it does not work, its essentially a waste of time unless you want to nuke algea and val LOL