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Hot take: I blew $75 on a CO2 kit for my 3 gallon before I admitted I was wrong about it
For about 4 months I ran a little pressurized CO2 setup on my 3 gallon planted bowl because every video I saw said it was the secret to that thick pearling carpet look. I dropped $75 on the regulator, a tiny diffuser, and tubing, plus another $20 on refills, and all I got was a constant pH swing and a green dust algae bloom that took me 3 weeks to beat back. The worst part was watching my anubias and java fern actually look worse while I chased numbers on a drop checker like it was a science project. What finally convinced me was a guy at my local shop in Sacramento who keeps a 5 gallon on his desk with just a $12 desk lamp and a snail, and his crypts looked better than anything I had grown in a year. He said something simple that stuck: in a tank this small, the CO2 swings faster than the plants can use it, so you are just feeding algae. I ripped the whole kit out last weekend, went back to a cheap light and weekly water changes, and the bowl already looks calmer. Anyone here actually run gas on a tank under 5 gallons and make it work, or did you also give up and go low tech?
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