Bfm Wants To Start Up Diy Co2, But Needs A Walk-Through! Lol

[BettaFishMommy]

hey all, i believe i'm ready to dive into the wild world of co2! just rescaped my 55 and would love to have the plants be taller than half-way up the tank, lol, and have all my new swords be lush and beautiful. but even with a good deal of research, i'm still scratching my head over how exactly to put it all together.

what i would absolutely love is if one of you plant geeks here in Edmonton with awesome diy co2 knowledge could come by my humble abode and tutor me (aka yell at me when i do it wrong, lol!) while i build everything.

let me know in advance what supplies i need, so i can have everything ready. i'm thinking two 2L bottles on a 55 would be sufficient?

coffee will be on

thanks in advance!

[The-Influence]

I have a DIY bottle already made if ya want it ! All ya need is sugar - yeast - water

Blake

[Morphine]

I would even suggest 3 - 2L bottles. 2 might not be enough and I believe your HOB filters if I can remember right.

IT's actually super easy why don't you shoot out some of the things you need clearing up in the forum - Also if you want you can PM me I'de be more then happy to help,

[Vallisneria]

When I used to have DIY co2 on my 58g I used 2 4l cranberry juice jugs. I had them staggered so i changed one every 2-3 weeks to keep a constant co2 flow.

Is there any specific problems you need help with? Making the jugs is easy enough. You just drilled a small hole in the lid and pull through some airline tubing. Then silicone around the tube to make sure its air tight.

There are a few different ways you can dissolve it into the tank. Airstone, powerhead etc. It just depends what you want to use or already have.

If you have multiple bottles you can either have them all running into the same airstone or have individual airline tubes/airstones for each bottle. If you want them all running into the same airstone you need to buy some check valves and a T connecter(or however many connections you want). The check valves will make it so you can change out one bottle without affecting the pressure in the others.

[BettaFishMommy]

i do have a three way gang valve that has two inputs into it. would that work in place of T connectors? i don't currently have any airstones but was thinking of running the co2 into the filter intakes (hobs, but i keep the water level up on the tank so not much surface disruption).

i've read articles and looked at many pictures online regarding diy co2 setups, but i'm still a tad confuzzled over it all.

would 4L milk jugs work? i tend to have those in supply more than juice bottles or pop bottles.

i've also seen setups where the airline from the co2 mixture bottle goes into another smaller bottle and then into the tank. what exactly is the purpose of the smaller second bottle?

so i think i need to pick up the following:

silicone

more airline tubing (the few pieces i have probably aren't long enough to reach from in the stand under the tank)

and of course the ingredients for the co2 mixture (i'm not a baker, don't even have yeast in the house! lol)

and what about a drop checker? how expensive are those or can i diy one?

anything else i might need?

and i know that co2 being fed into the tank during lights out isn't good, so do i just disconnect the airline from the co2 bottle at night or what?

see....... lots of questions still! :eh:

[gBOYsc2]

i've also seen setups where the airline from the co2 mixture bottle goes into another smaller bottle and then into the tank. what exactly is the purpose of the smaller second bottle?

That second bottle is to prevent anything from spilling from the bottle into the tank. I used to use one of those Hagen DIY co2 kits and I would always get a yeasty foam creep through the tube into the tank little bits at a time. So the foamy yeast stuff falls into this little jar or bottle while the co2 continues into the tank.

more airline tubing (the few pieces i have probably aren't long enough to reach from in the stand under the tank)

and what about a drop checker? how expensive are those or can i diy one?

Make sure you get co2 resistant air line tubing! I think the drop checker idea for DIY is a good idea. They are cheap and you can find em on ebay for about 10 bucks. lt will let you know when you have fluctuations and you can learn to fine tune exactly when your co2 supply is running out.

and i know that co2 being fed into the tank during lights out isn't good, so do i just disconnect the airline from the co2 bottle at night or what?

With a HOB filter you should be fine. I keep my pressurized running 24/7 with just a bit of surface agitation from a spraybar and I never have problems.

Hope this helps.

Oh they also sell tiny little tubes of aquarium safe silicone at big als. Should save ya a couple bucks maybe you could put towards the drop checker instead of lots of silicone that you don't need.

[BettaFishMommy]

i'd like the idea of having silicone in my supply bin anyway, just in case a tank repair has to happen, so buying a large tube doesn't worry me at all.

i'll definitely be doing the second smaller bottle for 'crud fall down'.

so plain old clear airline tubing wouldn't work? would the blue airline be best? i'm not sure which are co2 resistant.

[gBOYsc2]

I am not sure what the different colors are but as long as it is labeled. CO2 resistant. This is what is claimed on Green Leaf Aquariums:

"CO₂ Resistant tubing is the best way to transport and deliver CO₂ to the planted aquarium. We do not sell silicone tubing which is highly permeable to CO₂. With our CO₂ resistant tubing, CO₂ will not escape and every last drop of CO₂ will be put to efficient use."

I'm sure Big A's sells it.

[jvision]

If you fill your 2nd little bottle (pill bottle or small pop bottle works fine) with water or vegetable oil, it can act as a bubble counter as well - just run a line from your CO2 into the liquid and the 2nd line out of that bottle to your tank w. just 1" inside. The first line will create bubbles in the water or oil and the 2nd line will take the CO2 to your tank.

I've used many kinds of airline tubing for CO2 in the past, and have found that what happens with the cheap stuff is that it gets brittle after a while - I imagine CO2 will also escape out the brittle tubing.

[werner]

Some good diagrams on how to set it all up here.

[BettaFishMommy]

well folks, set up my first bottle today and it is a success! :thumbs: i've got a good bubble rate going and my 2L hasn't exploded yet, hahaha! took me a while to find a design online that i liked and could understand fully, but once i figured out what not to do by reading other people's errors it wasn't too hard.

used a 2L pop bottle for the mixture chamber, and one of those little globe coca cola bottles that were around for christmas as a gas seperator/bubble counter (just used water, not oil).

i had bubbles going within 10 minutes of installing it on the tank, woo hoo! a good part of my research said it could take up to 24 hours to see any action so i was very happy.

didn't even need silicone for sealing the hoses in the lid holes, just made the hole smaller than the outer diameter of the tubing and pulled it through with pliers. did get a little leak in the cap on top of the 2L but nothing a lil superglue and chewing gum didn't fix, lol!

ran the co2 line to my aquaclear 110 input (modified with a Penguin intake strainer) and rubber banded it to stay put. the noise from the bubbles going into the filter actually isn't that noticeable really. now i just have to fix up the air line so that it hides behind the intake tube real nice.

tomorrow (as in, when i finish up the other 2L of ice tea, lol) i'll be assembling the second of what i think will be three bottles eventually on this tank. going to put them on the tank in a staggered fashion so i can refill them staggered so that my levels stay as steady as possible (i know, i know.... with diy this isn't an easy task!).

all in all i'm pretty darn pleased with myself.

Edited January 8, 2011 by BettaFishMommy