CO2 During Daytime, O2 at Night Time??

Since plants covert CO2 into O2 when the lights are on and photosynthesis is taking place and at night time when the lights are of they revert to using O2 and produce CO2, it makes sense to turn off the CO2 at night and add O2 which is what my plants and fish need. yesterday it clicked so i decided to just that. i use my power head as defuser for my CO2 (it creates alot of bubbles and particles in the water, but hey it serves a practical purpose) it came with airline tubing and a adjustable valve that controls the amount of aeration. i have a DIY CO2 system with 4 containers adding up to about 10 L, i have check valve and then it connects to a control valve. last night i shut off the CO2 and attached the aeration valve to the powerhead so i can get a nice supply of oxygen to my tank (i run my lights for about 8 hours, that is 16 hours of lights off that the plants would benefit from the O2). I've only been working with planted aquarium for coming close to a month now and still have a lot to learn, i appreciate any feedback on how helpful this is, im just going with common sense.

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Comment by Peter on January 31, 2013 at 2:35pm: Ill try and explain it the best I can. Plants are like humans they breath o2 and produce co2 all the time. When light hits the plants they start the photosynthesis process were they use up co2 and produce o2. Photosynthesis produces many times more o2 than the plant produces co2. Even during photosynthesis plants are still producing a bit of co2. During lights out even if u have a super heavily planted tank u don't need to run an airstone. The only time u run 1 is when you are doin DIY co2 and don't have a way to turn it off an let it run all night. But if u turn off co2 wen lights out the. U should have a problem. The only time I came close to gassing my fish is wen my timer didn't work and my injected co2 was pumping out 4bps for 6hrs after lights out. All my fish survived none the less. So unless ur letting ur DIY co2 run all day long even after lights out u won't need to run an airstone at night I'm going of my experience and what I've read I'm sure I don't know all their is to know about this so hopefully some1 can add something I forgot or missed

Comment by Apollo on February 1, 2013 at 10:26am: thanks for your feedback peter i really appreciate the help. my question is does it actually have any benefit? even the slightness significant effect i will continue to do this, i want optimal plant health as im coming to the end of my first month and everything is looking good but good is never good enough lol. im also dealing with what looks like hair algae so the extra O2 is helping kill it quick (along with daytime CO2, minimal lighting ~8hrs, and frequent water changes[i do 15-25% every 3-4 days a little extra if its the weekend about 45%) ultimately will adding O2 at night give my plant/fish the slightest of benefit? (FYI i am not using an airstone i use y powerhead to aerate the tank)

Comment by Peter on February 1, 2013 at 12:21pm: Well it the extra o2 at night definitely helps ur fish. I'm not sure about plants but im sure it doesn't hurt

Comment by Ike on February 27, 2013 at 10:37pm: I run a DIY CO2, and an airstone even when the lights are out but I have the stone turned down should I turn it up a little more at night would the fish and plants befit from more O2 at night?

Comment by Apollo on February 28, 2013 at 8:09am: with DIY co2 it really wont matter because it wont produce enough co2 to even get 10 ppm. with injected co2 its a different story.

just make sure the airstone is producing enough aeration to cause distortion in the surface so the exchange of gas happens more smoothly.

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