Diy CO2

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M

manifresh006

Feeder Fish
Jan 2, 2007
1
0
0
houston
I have heard of many ways:screwy: to make a CO2 system for my aquarium anyone has a good suggestion on for a 10g one (only for plants) or for a 50g

Thanks:headbang2
 
I just made one last night!

4 cups warm water, 2 cups sugar, 1/4 tsp of yeast. 2 ltr soda bottle, air line tube and a diffuser.
 
The standard 2 liter soda bottle method would work fine for a 10 gallon tank. You could also use the 2 liter bottle with jello instead of the more common and popular liquid method. You'll get a smaller supply of CO2(still plenty for a 10g) from it, but it will last you a couple of months as opposed to the couple of weeks you get from the standard sugar/water mixture.
 
Some airline tubing is not CO2 proof and the CO2 that you want to dose the tank with could be leaching out of the tubing before it gets to the tank... This means loss of CO2, and this is what you do not want!

Haag13 - what do you mean 'jello'? How can you make a jello solution? I'm interested...
 
C J Castle;834910;834910 said:
Some airline tubing is not CO2 proof and the CO2 that you want to dose the tank with could be leaching out of the tubing before it gets to the tank... This means loss of CO2, and this is what you do not want!

Haag13 - what do you mean 'jello'? How can you make a jello solution? I'm interested...
Click to expand...

Search for jello co2.

Standard vinyl airline tubing will not gas off much co2, but it does get worn down very quickly and will break. Silicone is ok, however, you lose something like 15ppm co2 per foot of silicone. For co2, it is best to get pex tubing, also known as co2 tubing.
 
Like wyldfya said, if you search for jell-o co2 in any major search engine you should find a recipe for what I'm talking about. Basically, you make jello with about double the normal sugar content and let it cool and become firm in a soda or juice bottle. Then you add about a cup of warm water with 1/4 to a 1/2 teaspoon of yeast in it and let it work its magic. It works the same way as standard fermentation units but it only allows the yeast to access the sugar as it wears down through the jell-o. I'm using this set-up in one of my tanks and I'm really happy with the results so far. Once in a while I give the bottle a few shakes to liven things up but that's it so far and I've been on the same bottle for about 5 weeks now. Other forums have said that you can get 2-3 months from one bottle and so far it looks like I'll hit that mark fairly easily. I wouldn't recommend it for tanks over 20 gallons though unless you are setting up multiple bottles because the output probably won't be enough to keep your CO2 levels in a decent range. I think it would work great in a 10g though. If you decide to set-up the 50g instead I'd go with a pressurized system. I just bought all the components for a pressurized set-up on my 150g but I'll be asking some more questions about it tomorrow before I set it up.
 
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