The viability of CO2 in a C.O. vivarium

[ben]

Hello everyone:

Well, in my vivaria, I use a considerable amount of aquatic plants, including riccia fluitans, glossostigma elatinoides, hemianthus micranthemoides, dwarf hairgrass, and other diverse plants, and to supplement them, I use the carbon supplement called flourish excel; however, in all of my planted aquaria, I use diy CO2 yeast reactors to provide the carbon necessary for healthy plant growth under high light. Now, my question is, has anyone used CO2 in their newt's vivarium before? I haven't tried it before simply because I haven't had the need, but I decided I miss the pearling plants, so I decided why not; however, I'm not entirely certain how permeable the newts' skin might be to higher CO2 levels, and whether or not this would effect them adversely. Keep in mind that we planted tank keepers supplement our aquaria with CO2 all the time, and our fish never suffer for it (indeed, the plants produce enough O2 to offset any negative effects during the day,) but I was wondering if anyone has any experience in this. Anyway, sorry for the extensive post, but any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[samuel]

im not an expert but if you read in some old posts you will ifnd that CO2 its not god for sals, makes the watter too acidic

 

[a.]

in my opinion extra CO2 may be good for the plants, but will never benefit amphibians. it is a risky intervention as far as amphibians are concerned. guess: skin permeability to CO2 will be very high, as much of amphibian respiration crosses through the skin.

 

[richard]

I just said to H*ll with it and tried this with a CO2 ladder in my CO tank, and My plants greatly benifitted. If you do this bear in mind that Carbonic acid is created and well...check out my previous post.

http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7618/75372.html?1168420358

hopefully this will answer some of your questions.(even though its more likely to give you more questions)

The bottom line being I inject CO2 for 12 hours a day and I remove the hose from the generator when I am going to bed. My newt has suffered no ill effects and is going strong. Just dont go crazy with this and bubble it in all over the place with airstones.

Good Luck!

 

[ben]

See, now, the thing that confuses me is that I understand that newts use cutaneous respiration, but is this not akin to water running over a fish's gills? In truth, we never have problems with ph plummeting due to co2, because the highest reccommended rate we run at is only 30ppm. Any thoughts?

 

[a.]

Perhaps this is all a matter of two different tastes/likes colliding. Some of us enjoy things as 'natural' as can be, others appreciate enhancements and assisted improvements...

 

[colin]

The contribution that CO2 will make towards lowering pH is usually pretty low. Besides which, most amphibians prefer a slightly acidic environment. When considering the environment of a lot of salamanders, most naturally are in high CO2, low O2 environments. Chthonic environments are typically thought of as having low O2 (simply because oxygen poorly diffuses into soil) and high CO2 (due to respiration not only of subterranean vertebrates but all the decomposition going on). Similarly, marshes, bogs and swamps are high in detritus, massive amounts of oxygen depletion from decomposition, usually substantially acidic due to not only CO2 production via respirating organisms but many of the plants secrete protons to acidify conditions further. About the only salamanders I can think of that do NOT naturally encounter low O2, high CO2, low pH conditions are torrent dwelling salamanders and limestone cave dwelling salamanders. The latter of the two encounter VERY high CO2 conditions, although maybe not low pH, and torrent salamanders typically encounter high O2, low CO2 but acidic conditions via mosses.
As far as respiration goes, amphibians are generally able to tolerate much higher CO2 levels than most other vertebrates. In fact whereas exposure to high CO2 levels can quickly kill mammals and birds, it merely acts much like an anaesthetic in amphibians unless maintained over extremely long periods of time. Amphibians have fewer terminal NH2 groups in their hemogloben proteins for reacting with CO2 than do mammals, birds and reptiles. Most aquatic salamanders predominantly take up their O2 via lungs or gills, offload CO2 via cutaneous surfaces, and unless you are talking about some serious CO2 infusion into the water, the C02 gradient is pretty much always going to favour CO2 defusing from the salamander.
Whether one's set up qualifies as "natural" or "enhanced" I guess really comes down to how you view the salamander's natural habitat. I've never seen a bog set-up for salamanders that had 5m depth of peat, or a jungle set-up consisting of about a meter of rotting leaf litter over sodden clay. I'd therefore classify any associated salamanders as being kept in "enhanced" settings.
From personal experience, though, I've used CO2 to promote plant growth with anurans, aquatic salamanders, and aquatic caecilians, all to no ill affects. In fact, many of the animals readily and successfully bred under those conditions. I'd be more worried about CO2 effects on developing embryos than on adults, and they seem to do just fine.