DIY Co2

Definitely find myself drifting away from the tele all the time and staring at the tank, lol

i do that alot anyway its a good way to learn more about your fish there habits whos highest in the pecking order and who gets picked on also if you know how they act then you can see problems before they happen just by the way things are going in the tank it also helps to sex fish like the angels there are sutle differences between the sexes that most people carnt see

evaporation is the main problem with using a
liquid co2 reactor there will always be a way for
droplets to make there way to the tank that why
a water trap is always a must also set you second bottle away about 3quarters of the way through the
life of the first bottle that way you wont ever run out of
co2 gas as it takes a while for the reaction to start

Your tank looks lovely. The more i go in petshops and see peoples fish tanks, the more i'm starting to get my motivation back.
I'm full of ideas for these tanks i have, it's just getting started. :lol!:

i am going to start setting my reactors away
today or tomorrow i will let you know how i get
on

Good luck mate, hope it goes well.

i have been messing about with mixtures
on and off to get it right so with reading
a lot about and picking bits and bobs of
people i will have some stuff to collate
my findings and post them on here this
will be the first wet run as they say

Look forward to your findings. I've been using about 400g of sugar and half a tsp of yeast. I've got two bottles set up and change one each week to try keep a constant suply of Co2. Let me know what works best for you.

they reckon a tea spoon of backing soda helps as well

should get two to four weeks out of them
a light shake every day

Oh really, might give that a try too then. Would be much cheaper to get that long from them. Maybe I'll do it 2 weekly instead.

i would fill the bottle just over half full as it has
chance to foam up some times

Yeah I realised that shortly after doing the first two lol. Had to pour some away before it went up the tube. Plants seem to be growing loads so it might be the co2 working. I'm going to post a pic after each month to show the effectiveness.

how much yeast to sugar you using

I'm using 400 grams of sugar to half a teaspoon of yeast and then topping up with warm water, not hot. Speeds up the fermentation.

i use seven table spoons of sugar
and one teaspoon of yeast and a quarter teaspoon
of backing soda

for defusing try using a wood air stone
they are made out of lime wood and i find
they give finer bubbles

I'm not actually using an air stone at all. I've got the tubes directly under the filters impellar so it sucks up the co2 and breaks it up. Seems to be working well.

i am also looking at drop checkers just
to keep an eye on the ph so if you you get
a ph crash you can see it and stop it before
it go's two far

ph test fluid in the bowl of the drop checker
rough sketch of a drop checker

Yeah I can see how that would be a good idea. I haven't actually checked the PH since I set it up. Do you think it would be advisable? My PH was around 7.8ish prior so I thought a slight drop would be a good thing specially for the angels etc.

6.8 to 7 would be nice i would check the
ph just to see were it is sitting check when
the lights have been on for a while then check
first thing in the morning after the lights have been
out all night

well set another mix away this one i mixed the sugar
and water together and let it sand and clear for 24 hrs
before i added the yeast when i did this it started fermenting withing 5 hrs of adding the yeast also found that it works better if its kept warm but i last
a lot less if kept to warm

I've been putting 400g of sugar with 1/2 tsp of yeast straight into a 2 litre bottle and immediately adding warm (not hot, kills the yeast) water leaving about 3-4 inches room at the top of the bottle. Give it a really good shake to speed things up and get loads of Co2 within an hour. Slows down after about 12 hrs to a good steady rate. Working really well so far. Like I said previously I'm running 2 bottles for my 150ltr at the same time, changing one bottle a week.

i use 1 ltr of boiled cooled water and about two
big hands full of sugar and a full packet of yeast
i wrote a bit somwhere else on here