DIY CO2 Questions

[James0816]

Just finished doing a lot of reading. Gearing up to taking the plunge but gonna start slowly. I found this by Goatman:

"Im running a 20oz yeast bottle on my 10 gallon, holding a pretty stable 25ppm. 3/4 tsp. yeast, 1 cup sugar, fill the bottle to an inch from the top. Make sure you have a check valve and a second bottle as a gas seperator (could be used as a bubble counter too. So from the reactor bottle, pipe it through the cap of a second bottle half full of water, submersing the end of the tubing. Then pipe a second tube out of the bottle (above the water), through a check valve, to your diffuser. No back ups, reliable bubble count, no headaches. Adjust the recipe how you need."

I like the two bottle idea as he mentions using it as a bubble counter as well. I now have a few questions.

1) For the bubble counter, what count is one looking to achieve?
2) I've also read a little bit about the KH (or was it GH?) needing to be in a certain area to use CO2 successfully. Can someone explain this?
3) For the most part what I have seen, it seems that CO2 infusion is dropping PH by about .6ish. Isn't this bad for occupants?

Thanks

[Sploke]

The problem with DIY CO2 is that there's not really any easy way to control it, so a bubble counter is kind of pointless. The yeast is going to produce CO2 as fast as it does it, you can alter it a little by changing the temperature of the bottle but not much.

Generally, your KH should be at least 3 degrees so your pH doesn't drop too low.

[Squawkbert]

Best DIY recipe: 3 parts water, 1 part sugar, pinch of yeast - leave more than 1" at the top unless you're using a gas separator.

Keep bottle from tipping over - secure it or something.

Look into getting a Drop Checker.