CO2 is too much of a pain for me. Its too expensive to run if you buy the regulators and the constant refill of the tank, and DIY is kind of hit and miss. I have heard numerous horror stories of a DIY system gone totally wrong. Dont get me wrong, I am sure that they work wonders, but I have never seen the need for me to personally use them. My plants grow like weeds. I also dont have time to monitor the CO2 levels. I spend an average of 8 hours a week on just tank maint. alone between all the tanks.

I also know of alot of people from my aquarist club that have heavily planted tanks like mine that do not use CO2, and have awesome looking tanks.

We are getting ready to do an experiment and review on a product called Liquid CO2. It is suppose to work pretty good and could be another option for the aquarist that wants to use CO2 without the fuss.