Diy Co2 System

[atmmachine816]

Ok I went to three fishstores with my aunt today, took all afternoon and evening and came back lots of interesting stories and a combined over 100$ spent. Anyways we were talking to a guy who has lots of planted tanks and he asked if either of us had a CO2 system and we said no so he told us how to make one since he has the flurite stuff and CO2 and 3wpg on his tanks but here is his way of doing it.

Get a 2 litre pop bottle fill it 60-70% full of water, dissolve 2 cups of white sugar and a packet of yeast in it, screw on the cap, poke a hole, put tubing through the hole that feeds into the tank with an airstone on the other end, and seal the part where the tube and the cap meat with something I can't remember maybe with silcone. And that should last 2-3weeks on my 29 gallon. Does anybody see any problems with this or if this would work?

Thanks

Austin

 

[AMS]

DIY c02 have been done with yeast and soda bottles for years, check out the planted section and you will get tons of info on DIY c02.

 

[riverman444]

Yeppers..............that's the way I do it.

Only down side is the big white ball of crap that forms on the airstone. It looks light and fluffy but it's dense, smelly, and actually quite heavy.

 

[mitchie]

You must be new to the co2 thing

 

[atmmachine816]

How'd you know. Yes I'm new, never knew that the diy co2 was so easy, I always thought it was harder so I never read people's posts. The big white ball, is it harmful to the fish, do you need to scrape it off or something, what do you do with it?

Thanks

Austin

 

[gt568]

Just a quick point though peeps, an airstone is a very inefficient way to diffuse co2, as the bubbles just shoot straight to the surface. you'd be much better off with a proper diffuser of some kind, eg nutrafin ect. When I had diy co2 I ran the outlet into the bottom of my internal filter (rio 240) and it worked really well, 25ppm.

 

[atmmachine816]

What would you suggest as a proper diffuser then that is easy for a kid to get a hold of? And what would a nutrafin be?

Would a 20oz. pop bottle or a 2 litre bottle be better for my 29 gallon tank, it's not heavily planted yet.

Austin

 

[atmmachine816]

Would a bubble wall that puts off tiny bubbles be better?

 

[atmmachine816]

Any good ideas on how to stop the CO2 from going into the tank without wasting it?

 

[atmmachine816]

One tank the wpg is .666 and the other is currently 1 but am hoping to get it to 2wpg this summer. As for that link, my lfs is selling it on sale for 16$. I was reading before that the bubbles will eventually break the filter.

 

[atmmachine816]

What way can you disconnect the co2 so at night it's not going in the tank at night because you don't want co2 in your tank at night. Just unscrew the cap enough to let some air come out.

 

[vic]

CO2 diffuser:
I use a Hagen Elite Mini submersable filter in my 125G heavilly planted community tank. This filter is designed for about a three gallon tank but that is irrelevant. The issue is diffusion not filtration. The Mini has a 360" rotatable outlet deflector with a built in air line inlet. Simply place the filter as low in the tank as possible and point the stream into some plants or the like. This will further enhance the diffusion of the CO2. The filter will likely cost less that $10USD. Make sure that you leave the filter media in the filter. Even thoug the object is not filtration, the media will protect the impeller from "stuff" clogging the impeller. Planted tanks tend to be a little messier than other tanks as a result of the planting and the "grazing" by the fawna in the tank. It would be wise to get a pH and KH test kits to monitor the dissolved CO2 in you tank. There are a number of tables out there to correlate the pH and KH and provide the disolved CO2. PM me if you can't find them. Optimum is in the range of 25 to 30 PPM. You should also not be injecting air into the tank durring CO2 injection. There are some nasty chemistry issues with this practice. There are a number of other internal and external diffuser possabilities including ladders, glass domes, inline diffusers in external filtration lines, etc. I chose the little filter as it is simple and easy to conceal. I didn't buy a fish tank to store a bunch of hardware so the smallest and least conspicious method got my vote.
Cheers;

 

[atmmachine816]

I'm not sure if I can find a KH tester but I have a PH tester as for the air injection how do you do that, would you need to do that if you didn't run the CO2 at night? As for a KH tester if I can't find one as long as my fish don't struggle for air or show signs of distress and my ph is fine then could I assume that the PPM is OK?

Austin

So basically all you guys are saying that I should not set-up the CO2 system until I get proper equipment and that if I use an airstone that I won't be ok for a month.

 

[atmmachine816]

I get what you guys saying on have a proper difuser (think that's what it's called) still getting used to co2 but would an airstone suffice for awhile putting a little extra co2 in the water not much but some to help a little, or is it just a waste of time.

 

[atmmachine816]

Anybody here expierence anything dangerous about there DIY co2 systems, I'm gona put mine in a case made out of oj containers to prevent any leaking or if it explodes to minimize the mess but do any of you guys have a dangerous things happen.