# CO2 Bomb killed some of my plants?



## arielelf (May 23, 2007)

I have had a slug and snail problem, so after doing some research I bought a 26oz. CO2 tank and a hose and bombed my tank. It seemed to kill a lot of the slugs but there are still some left, however it seems to have also killed and damaged half of my plants. This seems wierd to me bacause what I read was that plants thrive from the CO2. I sealed up the tank very well, and left some of the vent open at the top to allow the oxygen out. 

SO..... I don't know what to do now. I still have slugs which have been slowly and steadily damaging my plants, but I am affraid to kill the rest of my plants with more CO2.

Any ideas?


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

I very much doubt that co2 could have killed your plants, unless they were completely deprived of oxygen for an extended period. My guess is that the gas coming out of your tank was too cold and that caused the damage.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

epiphytes etc. said:


> I very much doubt that co2 could have killed your plants, unless they were completely deprived of oxygen for an extended period. My guess is that the gas coming out of your tank was too cold and that caused the damage.


That was my first thought. 

Ed


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## B-NICE (Jul 15, 2011)

Too much of anything is always bad. I seen a baby slug yesterday, I tossed it out. It was the third one I've found in that viv. That viv has been set up since aug., the plant life is doing great. I usually see them on leaf litter. I decided to skip out on the CO2 because the frogs were going to be there in a few days.


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## freaky_tah (Jan 21, 2009)

B-NICE said:


> Too much of anything is always bad.


+1 to what epiphytes and Ed said. An excess of CO2 won't kill plants, so there was most likely some other problem happening.


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## B-NICE (Jul 15, 2011)

Yea I wasnt going to CO2 my viv. I tried the lettuce method and didnt see any slugs, so Its not a big deal for me.


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## Johno2090 (Aug 31, 2011)

Co2 does kill plants as I've done it myself many times, you need to remember that when plants have no light for photosynthesis they are much like any oxygen breathing animal. I personally use co2 canisters as opposed to your dry ice as I turn it off an hour before night. If you had the ice still in the tank with the lights off there would have been lack of oxygen for respiration causing damage to the plants.


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## fieldnstream (Sep 11, 2009)

Anyone who has had an o-ring go bad on a co2 tank while playing paintball can tell you all about how cold the co2 is when it comes out...can be quite refreshing on a hot day though.


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

I believe that I've read that a good way to CO2 treat your viv and NOT cause cold damage is to put some dry ice in a cup and let the CO2 gas flow out of the cup and slowly fill the viv. This allows the CO2 to warm up before filling up your viv, and won't cause cold damage to the plants.


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## freaky_tah (Jan 21, 2009)

fieldnstream said:


> Anyone who has had an o-ring go bad on a co2 tank while playing paintball can tell you all about how cold the co2 is when it comes out...can be quite refreshing on a hot day though.


Haha yeah I burned myself a few times as a kid when this exact thing happened. You learn quickly not to plug your finger over the leak!


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## arielelf (May 23, 2007)

I don't think it was the cold, I made sure to not direct the stream anywhere towards the plants, and the plant damage is all over the tank but concentraited on the floor, not where the co2 was directed. I think John is right, I had the lights off over night, so that was probably the culprit. 

So if I leave the lights on all the time whie the co2 is in the plants will be ok?





Johno2090 said:


> Co2 does kill plants as I've done it myself many times, you need to remember that when plants have no light for photosynthesis they are much like any oxygen breathing animal. I personally use co2 canisters as opposed to your dry ice as I turn it off an hour before night. If you had the ice still in the tank with the lights off there would have been lack of oxygen for respiration causing damage to the plants.


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## freaky_tah (Jan 21, 2009)

While the plants will be using oxygen during cellular respiration, generally they produce way more than they consume. It's possible that a complete lack of oxygen can harm them, but I'd think there would still be some within the tank during the time you didn't have the lights on. How long did you bomb the tank?

On a side note, this sort of reminds me of threads I occasionally saw on a freshwater forum, where people would say the plants were killing their fish at night because they used up all the o2...which in that case there's definitely another issue!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

freaky_tah said:


> While the plants will be using oxygen during cellular respiration, generally they produce way more than they consume. It's possible that a complete lack of oxygen can harm them, but I'd think there would still be some within the tank during the time you didn't have the lights on. How long did you bomb the tank?
> 
> On a side note, this sort of reminds me of threads I occasionally saw on a freshwater forum, where people would say the plants were killing their fish at night because they used up all the o2...which in that case there's definitely another issue!


One of the things that occurs particularly in soft water aquariums is that there can be huge swings in pH over the course of 24 hours as plants take up CO2 (shifting the equilibrium of carbonates in solution) and then releases it. This can shift pH values by a surprising large values. 

With respect to the plants.. If there was damage more to the plants on the bottom of the enclosure, I would expect that with cold damage.. keep in mind that cold gases sink.... which would mean that the largest change in temperature is going to occur at the ground level....


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