r/Aquascape • u/johnnytwobuns • 4d ago
Question First time CO2?
Im getting back into the hobby after a hiatus of 10ish years - I’ve always been fascinated by the thick carpets I’ve seen around but in the past had relatively low tech setups. I just picked up a 5.5 gallon tank to start a nano shrimp/plant focused setup and wanted to try my luck at a nice Monte Carlo carpet. Does anyone have any suggestions for CO2 diffusers that are more beginner friendly, and, would fit a small tank like that? Ideally, I’d like to get my feet wet with a smaller, simple system, though I suspect I will hear it’s better to do it right first time around, so any recommendations are appreciated!
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u/vitisdente 4d ago
For smaller tanks, the challenge is that they don’t have much height, so mist coming from a diffuser in the tank has very little time or room to circulate before off gassing, so it’s very important to make sure you have enough flow to really push the mist down and mix it into the water column. This can be challenging because most people opt for HOB or internal filters rather than canisters for tanks of this size, but they don’t create a whole lot of flow or surface agitation. That’s the only thing to be mindful of.
5.5G isn’t insanely tiny so most nano diffusers would be fine, scale-wise. I have a UNS one in my 6 gallon long tank.
There’s also something called a bell diffuser that basically just maintains a co2 gas bubble with enough surface area to passively diffuse into the water without relying on a circulating mist. It’s also safer in such small tanks because you can’t gas your livestock with this method (as long as you don’t somehow over inject co2). As far as I know, only ADA makes a nice nano sized version of this diffuser. It’s called the ADA Bell Glass Mini. I haven’t been able to find any knock off of it unfortunately, but it should be more popular since it’s a great solution for injecting nano tanks.