Lets start with the substrate and adding the water and composite that comes with your Aldrovanda. What you are after is the micro flora/fauna and good bacteria. If you have the time and desire Google micro flora and fauna, hordes of information will pop up. Micro flora and fauna are critical to the success of Aldrovanda. Adding the old water/composite will introduce many of the needed organisms necessary to balance your tank if they are not already present. Without introducing them it will take 4 - 6 months for your tank to level out. Adding companion plants can help introduce them too.

Aldrovanda need to grow in "Brown Water" or water with organic matter decomposing. To my knowledge nobody knows exactly why this is. Sphagnum Peat fits the bill rather well though. Fresh plant matter decomposing is not good, causes fungus/algae. Old already partially broke down plant matter decomposing is what we want, exactly what peat is. The peat will soften the water and lower PH to a degree. The peat should also help support the microbes.

And on to companion plants. A lot of places reference these as have to have. Maybe they are and maybe not. It depends on your setup. They help with two things. 1) remove excess nutrients from the water 2) may introduce needed bacteria and micro flora/fauna. So if you need them for those two reasons then add them. Otherwise don't worry about it. If you use tap water with a hardness over 50 ppm I would use companion plants. Or if for some reason you can not get old Aldrovanda water and composite it may help get the ecosystem going. So will rocks from the bottom of established fresh water aquariums. You want the small fine ones but not the smooth man made ones. Keep them wet during the transition.

We just learned why we need to add a substrate to the water and why we need to add the water and substrate that comes with the Aldrovanda. We also learned the purpose for companion plants.

OK, still not too bad. Right? Next we will get into CO2. That's also going to necessitate learning about water in and of itself. I don't have the time or the knowledge to get into detail but here are the basics:

CO2 is used by the plants for photosynthesis. Without it they can't convert light to energy. Most water gets CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the air and it maintains 2 - 4 ppm. If plants run out of CO2 then growth slows or stops. So one would think with more CO2 they would grow faster. And that is true if they have enough light to use it. The light is the determining factor, not the CO2.

You have bright light you say? I want to add CO2 and watch my plants grow like mad, you say? Well, OK. First lets take a look at how water works. Keep in mind this is very simplistic and condensed.

The parts of water that effect us for this purpose is PH, Alkalinity (kh) and of course CO2. You need to understand these things before you start playing with your water. Most everyone understands PH. Alkalinity is basically a measurement used to determine how well your water resists change. Alkalinity and KH (carbonate hardness) is not exactly the same but interchangeable for the most part and done so often. And as stated above most water has a CO2 level of 2 - 4 ppm naturally. If you are using soft water you can easily add CO2 too it. If you have hard water you have to force the CO2 into the water or it won't take.

As the CO2 level comes up PH will go down. The higher the alkalinity (KH) of the water the more CO2 you can achieve while maintaining an acceptable PH. RO and bottled water have a KH of 0. It doesn't take much CO2 to drop the PH considerably.

Adding CO2 is pretty easy and generally fairly cheap to do. The exception is when you want to automate and stabilize it. Fish stores also offer several options for producing CO2. We're going to show you how to produce your own.

We're going to cover two different ways to get higher levels of CO2 into your water. The first works for small low kh tanks and does not require a water pump. The second uses a water pump to force the CO2 to mix with the water. This type can be used to raise CO2 in any size tank and type of water.

For both systems your going to need to produce CO2. We'll make a CO2 generator, cheap and easy. Gather the following supplies:
2-Liter bottle - rinsed
aquarium air hose
aquarium air stone (optional but best, just a small cheap blue one does fine)
silicone caulking
funnel
water
sugar
yeast

1) Drill a hole in the 2-liter cap. You want a hole just big enough to slip the air hose into. You could do this with a knife if you don't have a drill or bits, but be extremely careful.

2) Slip the air hose into the hole you made, you want it to stick inside the bottle an inch or less. Apply the silicone caulking around the air hose on the top and bottom of the cap. Be careful not to fill up the threads or the cap will be hard to get back on. This needs to be an air tight seal. Optionally you can drill a hole smaller than the hose. Cut the hose at an angle. Poke what you can into the hole then pull through with needle nose pliers. No silicone needed then.

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This is a simple setup with a blowback chamber installed. Fill the blowback chamber 3/4 with water so pressure can build easier.

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This uses the pressure built up by holding the CO2 trapped under water. Here I have used a 4" water tray. Poke numerous (50+) tiny holes in the top with a sewing needle. I poked two larger holes with a large sewing machine needle. The small holes seep CO2 into the water. The larger holes relieve excess CO2 periodically and help prevent surface film buildup. I used 4 - 3/4" PVC elbows filled with sand to make the anchor attached with fishing line. You'll probably have to play with the larger holes to get them to function the way you want. An airstone is not needed for this type of setup. I started with one but since have removed it.

This is the complete setup. It has companion plants because I like using some tap water to help stabilize the tank. 100% bottled or RO water is to clean to support small life forms too. It has 1/4 cup of peat per gallon of water and roughly the same amount of gray clay. Then I used 1 cup of silica sand spread out on the bottom. The silica sand helps reflect light back up and it holds the peat down well. It has 6 trumpet snails to eat any algae that appears and as a food source since they reproduce like mad. Daphnia and copods have also been introduced.

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Water current is used to force the CO2 into the water. This can be achieved many ways. All you need is some type of reactor to mix the CO2 into the water. This is generally accomplished with a water pump but there are many different ways to do it. I don't like using a pump on small indoor setups because it keeps things too stirred up and kills off a lot of life forms. But if your in high light levels you really need to keep CO2 production up, especially for Aldrovanda.

This is one type of setup. Fast and easy. For complete instructions click the pic to visit the website it came from. Its just a water pump hooked up to a gravel syphoning tube with a sponge stuck in the end. Extremely efficient though. This will raise the CO2 in any setup and in any water. Probably too much unless you can control the CO2 fed into it.

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Here is another one that Vater drew over at the forum. Notice how they both place the CO2 airstone in water current? That is what you must do in larger tanks or higher KH water.

You can also make an out-of-the-tank system. You generally do this by placing the pump in the tank or using an in-line pump. The water is pumped out of the tank, into a reactor and back into the tank. This is one type of basic out of tank reactor. Click the pic for complete instructions in a new window.

Click for website with complete instructions

That should give you a good head start. Just remember CO2, Alkalinity and PH are all tied together. Here is a link to a CO2 calculator, scroll to the middle of the page. CO2 Calculator It also has lots of good info on planted tanks. But unless you can exactly measure alkalinity and PH it won't do a lot of good. One author says just use the PH as an indicator, a drop of 1 full point equals 30 ppm CO2. Nice and easy, I like that. He has a lot of experience with planted tanks so I think he knows what he's talking about.

You can get into some really extravagant setups with bubble counters and ph controllers. Its really not necessary especially when no fish are present. Below are some links to some good info, all will pop a new window.